Best Friends and Equals
by Alcibie
Summary: A deadly threat has far-reaching consequences for the Doctor and his companions...follows "Shouting at the World"
1. Chapter 1

Before and After

The man in the suit had almost made it back to the shore. With what looked like a final, enormous effort, he pulled himself free of the waves and collapsed onto the stones, gasping for breath. Above him, the sky was darkening quickly. Rain and wind obscured the view and for a second, he was motionless where he lay. Then in one movement, he was upright, turning to the right and then the left. His eyes were wild.

"Donna!" he shouted into the storm.

Nothing. He rubbed his eyes as if trying to dry them to sharpen his vision but every inch of him was drenched.

"Donna!"

He turned back towards the churning waves.

"_No!"_

Alice shot upright in her bed. As she looked around, trying to calm her breathing, she realised that her bedclothes were all over the floor, as if she'd fought them, as if she too had been struggling to escape from the rising waters...

This was getting weird. Alice had had strange dreams before. In her psychology courses, she'd studied dreams, analysed them, and she'd always remembered most of her own in good detail. But this was three times in a row. She'd never had the same, vivid dream three times in a row.

It always started the same way. Donna, in the water, struggling to keep her head above the furious water. She could see her friend so clearly. A purple jacket...her hair loose and clinging to her as she fought. And that man, making his way ashore, without her. Collapsing on the shore, then realising he was alone, turning around and calling for Donna.

She switched on her bedside lamp, trying to clear the room of the remnants of the dream. Everything was normal. Clothes thrown over the chair beside her, a clock ticking, the faint light from streetlamps outside. The sound of wind and rain outside. The storm was certainly showing no signs of letting up any time soon.

Should she tell Donna about the dream?

Should she track down that man she travelled with and tell _him_?

She didn't even know where they were or what sort of places they went to. Donna never told her much.

Would they both think she was crazy to get so worked up over a dream?

Alice lay down again and turned into the pillow, trying as hard as she could to erase the images from her mind.

_A week later_

"You realise what you've done?" the Doctor asked, his voice hard. Through the million things she was trying not blurt out, Jenny had a fleeting realisation that she tended to think of him as _the Doctor_ when things were going wrong between them.

"Told you we were going to get a bollocking," Jack whispered to her, raising an eyebrow. She knew he was trying to make them both feel better but it wasn't working. It wasn't working because his attempt at a smile looked like anything but and because deep down she knew, _they both knew,_ how stupid they'd been.

"Jack?"

The Doctor walked slowly around the console and faced them. Jack looked defiant but Jenny could tell by his sharp intake of breath that he was as uncomfortable as she was.

"Yes?"

"You're not exactly lily-white yourself, are you?"

"Am I ever?"

The Doctor didn't dignify this with an answer.

"Yeah, ok." Jack took a deep breath. "It was a week ago, alright? Ianto and I...there was this restaurant I wanted to take him to and it's kind of complicated but we'd had a bad week and I just thought what harm could it do? Just this once..."

The Doctor gave a short, mirthless laugh.

Before he turned back to Jenny, she stepped forward, anticipating him.

"I know what I've done," she said, "I know what you said and I know I should have listened but when you hear the whole story, you'll know I wasn't just being impulsive. There was a split second and I really had to act or someone would've..."

The Doctor held up a hand.

"Enough...I've heard enough." The anger in his expression was now replaced by a curious mixture of compassion and irritation.

His eyes were so sad when he spoke again.

"Somewhere along the lines, we've all contributed to this."

"_You _haven't," Jenny said, trying hard to keep her voice calm.

"Yes. I have. I've obviously not explained to you _how important_...how..." His voice rose on each syllable and he trailed off as if there were no words to emphasise his point properly.

"Maybe _I've_ even forgotten." He sighed and looked away from them, back to the console and beyond.

"If I hadn't been so blatant about the photograph, we could have handled it more discreetly. But she's Donna's friend and she deserved to be taken seriously. I thought she needed to know that someone believed her."

Jenny couldn't decide if he was talking to them or to himself.

"She did," Jack replied quietly.

"Most of all," he continued talking as if he hadn't heard him, "if I'd been honest with you, if I'd told you from the start what we were up against...when Alice told me. But you take these things seriously and you cause disaster. You run from it and it's the first thing you run into. All of our histories are filled with stories of people who tried so hard to escape from....from dreams, prophecies, whatever you want to call them...I was trying to protect Donna."

"We know," Jack said, "Doctor...none of this is your fault."

"Can't we do anything now?" Jenny asked, "can't we go back...?" She trailed off at the expressions on both faces.

"I don't mean...do anything stupid."

The Doctor stared down at the console but when he swung back to regard them again, his face was clear.

"'Course we can!"

"What?"

"Metaphorically, of course! We sit down and we go through everything that's happened since Donna went for that visit. _Before_ then, in fact..." He gave Jenny a stern look.

"Ok," she said quickly.

"Doctor?" Jack was watching the Doctor and there was something in his face that Jenny had never seen before.

"It's not your fault, any of it," Jack repeated, "Donna would be the first person to say that."

Jenny looked away from them and to the couch in the corner with the purple jacket thrown over it. Later on, she thought, she'd get the jacket dry and clean and hang it up nicely.

It was about the only constructive thing she could think of to do.


	2. Tuesday

Tuesday

Poor Jenny. Her first shopping trip and they were in real danger of being washed away. If she'd never travelled with the Doctor and seen climates like nothing on Earth, Donna might have said that the rain was like nothing she'd ever seen. And the wind! It could physically propel you along. Dragging Jenny into a nearby doorway, they watched a woman nearby give up any attempt to hold an umbrella and throw it down to the pavement. It immediately blew sideways, causing a man to just out of its way and into a gutter full of water.

"Probably not the best day to go shopping," she said to Jenny.

But Jenny was staring around in fascination. Donna supposed that she'd never seen so many people together, never mind shops filled with things she'd never be able to explain.

"I know why you're doing this," Jenny said, her eyes bright with sudden amusement.

"What?"

"Taking me here. You both think I need to get less wary of humans. Will you ever learn that I have really good hearing?"

"Probably not. Still, we'll never keep secrets from you then, will we?"

"I'm not _wary_ of humans."

"What?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," Jenny said, raising an eyebrow slightly, "you should know that by now. I don't want to hurt or offend humans because I know my father wouldn't want me to. So..." Her smile faded and she stared into the middle distance, "is that awful of me, Donna? I can't hurt them so I don't know how to be around them. Am I some sort of monster?"

"No! 'Course you're not!" Donna struggled for something right to say. "You're on the defensive when you meet someone because you've been taught to be. That takes time. There's not been many situations for you when you haven't had to be."

"There's nothing after us now."

"No. Except this rain. Look at that...the road's getting flooded."

"There's a lot to take in," Jenny said. Donna followed her gaze to a bus passing by, with people pushed against the doors. Lights flickered around them as the cars trawled through puddles on the road. People pushed past them into the shop, shaking out sodden hats or sleeves.

"Is it too much for you?" she asked tentatively.

"No!" Jenny was grinning again. "I don't know where to start!"

"Toys."

"What?"

"Toys. My friend's had a baby and I'm going to visit her on Friday. I need to get a present."

"Toys...for children?" Jenny looked disappointed.

"I'll be quick, promise," Donna assured her.

The shop was large and colourful with a floor getting slippery from a day of wet feet tramping through it.

"Barbies!" Donna pounced on one, holding up the box to show Jenny. "I could play with these for hours. I had everyone tortured to get them for me." She bit her lip to keep from laughing. The toys were clearly enchanting Jenny as much as they were her.

Jenny reached around her for a glittering doll with wings.

"That's lovely," Donna said, "not for a baby though, I suppose. Maybe later on. All little girls love fairies."

"What are fairies?" Jenny asked and Donna heard the thrill in her voice, at a word not in her vocabulary.

"Well, kind of like a spirit. A friendly little spirit with wings. We used to have flower fairy dolls. They were really pretty."

"So they exist here on Earth, these spirits?"

"No!" Donna laughed slightly. "They're a myth. A bit like Santa Claus. Oh, you don't know about him either. We humans seem to believe in a lot of things when we're children and we give them up when we grow up. They're just nice little stories." She frowned suddenly.

"I just realised...it's hard to know what I believe anymore."

Jenny shot her a glance that was half understanding, half sympathetic.

"Try not knowing what to believe in the first place," she said wryly.

They didn't do much shopping in the end. Most of the trip was taken up with trying to stay as dry as they possibly could, and trying to keep Jenny focused on the job in hand. They returned to the TARDIS and emerging into the console room after a shower, Donna found Jenny sitting over books.

"Where's the Doctor?" she asked.

"Out looking for nails," Jenny said, "can you imagine, in all the vastness of this ship, he couldn't find nails!"

"Have you seen the way he tidies?"

Jenny laughed.

It was all strangely domestic, Donna thought. Staying in one place with nothing special to do, even if only for a day didn't really fit with her life with the Doctor but at the same time it was interesting. She knew the Doctor wouldn't be comfortable with it. That was probably why he was out, stocking up on hardware. Nothing to do meant time to find something to do and maybe the TARDIS herself was in agreement with that because suddenly a shrill alarm made them both jump.

"What was that?"

"I don't know!" Tentatively Donna stood up and moved around the console without a clue of what she might be looking for.

"It's moving," Jenny said, as the familiar whirring sounded.

"Can't be...the Doctor's not here!" Seriously alarmed now, Donna looked frantically around for something to press. Shouldn't there some of sort of TARDIS equivalent to an "escape" key. But there was nothing.

They clung to the console as the ship shuddered to a sudden halt.

"Might as well see where we are," Jenny said, heading towards the door.

"I don't think we should. Could be anywhere!"

"Yes and we might as well see. Come on, Donna. We've been moved for a reason."

"The Doctor'll have kittens when he finds us gone."

"We can't do anything about that now," Jenny replied calmly, "I can't fly it back. Can you?"

Donna looked uncertainly at the controls.

"I never have, by myself."

"Well then." They stared at each other for a moment.

"He can find us though," Donna said, "he's got his key. He can bring us back. If we leave here, and the TARDIS leaves, then we're stranded."

"Just a minute...one minute." Jenny was already opening the door.

"We can't _do_ anything," Donna warned her, "if we're in some other time. We can't interfere."

"'Course not!"

The door swung open.

In the doorway, all Donna could see was Jenny staring into the distance.

"What is it?"

"Not a lot," Jenny said, moving outside to let her see, "it's like a forest or something."

Sure enough, all they could see around them was trees and earth. Even the sky was hard to glimpse with the expanse of green above their heads.

"We could be somewhere prehistoric," Jenny said, her tone excited.

"Don't count on it." Donna pointed to the ground at their feet. "That's a tin, like a tin of beans or something. The dinosaurs weren't eating those."

"There's nothing much to see." Jenny walked ahead, trying to see. Suddenly she stopped and stared ahead of her.

"What? What do you see?"

But Jenny was gone, at full gallop and Donna followed, even though she knew she couldn't hope to keep up. Jenny was seriously good at running.

It seemed to take ages before she did catch up. Jenny was sitting beside a stream, watching the streaks of sunlight in the water.

"Sorry," she said, "I thought I saw something."

"Like what?"

"I thought it was...the light looked funny." Jenny laughed slightly but there was something manic in her laugh, "we're not supposed to interfere, are we? But it's ok to be seen, isn't it? That's no harm."

"No," Donna said uncertainly.

"It was just children," Jenny said, "two little girls running about. They've gone now."

"What did you think they were?"

"Just thought we were supposed to be looking for something. Like for whatever reason the TARDIS brought us here." Her face was tense and Donna noticed, not for the first time, that so much of Jenny's bravado was a front for an awful lot of uncertainty about the world.

"Come on," she said, holding out her hand to help the girl to her feet, "we'd better get back."

***************************

"And that's all it was? A forest?" The Doctor's voice was incredulous. "Think, Donna, was there anything? Strange noises? Anything strange about the atmosphere? The TARDIS wouldn't have done that for no reason."

"Nothing." Donna shook her head. "A forest and children playing by a stream. We don't even know _when_ it might have been, apart from the tin of beans and that doesn't exactly narrow it down. Jenny thought the light looked strange though, didn't you?"

Jenny shrugged and Donna could help noticing that she didn't seem to want to look directly at either of them.

"No, it wasn't really. Just evening sunlight."

"And you didn't talk to anyone?"

"No." Donna wondered briefly if she should mention how Jenny had run from her and how she'd been the one to see the children but decided against it. After all, neither of them had interacted with anyone or interfered with anything. The Doctor and Jenny argued so much over Jenny's impulsiveness that it seemed pointless to start them off again.

Still though, she could understand why his face looked so troubled. After this long travelling with him, she knew as well as he did, that nothing ever really happened for no reason.


	3. Wednesday

Wednesday

"That was...that was..." Ianto staggered to his feet and looked around him.

"Shaky," he finished quietly.

"Yeah well, it got us here," Jack said, pressing a button on his Vortex Manipulator as he hoped against hope that the Doctor hadn't got some sort of tracker on it.

Beside him, Ianto was staring transfixed at the street in front of them.

"You ok?" Jack asked. Time travelling without a capsule, as the Doctor liked to put it, could scramble your brains a bit.

"You've time-travelled, Ianto! What do you think?"

"Cardiff. 2007. Amazing. Hope I can stand the excitement."

"Come on!" Jack punched his arm lightly, "this is the first of many! It's just...technically speaking, I'm not supposed to be doing this. And you know me, usually I would say, might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and take you somewhere really exciting but...it's kind of complicated and there's all sorts of rules about not interfering and at least here, we're in no way conspicuous."

"As long as we don't run into ourselves. That could be classed as conspicuous."

"And wouldn't that be a fun evening! But no, it's ok, I checked. Two years ago, this very night, we're safely back in the hub and would you believe?" He gave Ianto a quick wink. "We're not really inclined to go out."

"Great." Ianto brushed himself down. "Well then. Where do we start? Check out any sights we might have missed first time around?"

"The restaurant I told you about! Murelli's...it's right over there, see? Closed down...well...in two month's time. They do the best seafood."

"What if our meal tonight saves the business and they don't close down and we change the course of history?"

"We'll take the risk." Jack grinned at him.

They crossed the street and headed towards the open door of the restaurant.

"That'd be one way of saving Cardiff from the recession," Ianto was saying, "go back in time...pump some money into all these struggling shops and cafes and give them a fighting chance. We could...Jack? Are we going in?"

"Hold on."

Jack paused, a hand out towards the door. He could have sworn he'd heard...

"Ianto, did you hear a scream?"

"What? No."

"It was coming from down here." Jack walked toward a side street.

"Jack, should we be doing this?"

A shrill scream echoed through the narrow street.

Jack ran down the path and into a courtyard in between a small, forlorn cluster of houses. A very high wall shielded them from the main street and at the top of wall...

"Hold on. Stay very still," he said calmly.

A little girl stood at the top of the wall. She looked to be frozen, arms outstretched, unable to move or even to balance herself into a sitting position. On the ground beside him, another small girl stood sobbing.

Ianto skidded to a halt behind him.

"I'll look around for a ladder," he said quietly.

"No time." Jack headed towards the corner house and took a look back at the child. The evening sun was strong and he couldn't see her clearly but he could tell that she hadn't moved a muscle. She seemed to sway gently, her arms the only thing giving her any sort of balance. It was a miracle she hadn't fallen.

He clambered on to a window sill, grasping at a mixture of trellis and branches on the side of the house. As they took his weight, he felt the wood bend beneath his feet but he grasped the top of the wall and swung his weight upwards, scrambling into position at the top of the wall.

"It's alright," he said gently, moving towards her, "give me your hand. I'll help you down."

Still, she didn't move. Terrified, he guessed, shifting his weight along the top of the wall. When he reached her, he took her hands, breathing deeply in relief.

Ianto had found a large bin and positioned it below them. Between them, they manoeuvred the child on to its lid and Ianto lifted her down.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Jack winked at her.

"I don't get lifted down," he said, easing himself down.

She still stood, regarding him solemnly. Slowly, she blinked, as if waking from a dream. She focused on him and her eyes widened.

"Where do you live?" Jack asked.

The sound of his voice seemed to break a spell. She turned and took off at a run. The other child stared at them uncertainly for a second, then spun around and followed.

They listened as the footsteps disappeared.

"There's gratitude," Ianto said.

"Yeah." Jack tried to laugh but suddenly the small street seemed dark.

"Jack? Should we have done that? I know...well, obviously we should...but _should_ we?"

Jack considered. He knew, and suddenly he _really_ knew, that interfering was dangerous. But then again, the Time Agency had trampled over the past like a ton of bricks. Long before meeting the Doctor, he had done the same. That last trip to Pompeii, he could have sworn that was himself he'd spotted in the market. But still...

Why did it feel like the sun had just gone in? A moment ago, the whole place had been bathed in light.

"It's fine," he said to Ianto, "if we hadn't turned up, someone would have, or she'd have managed to get down by herself. She was holding up pretty well."

They headed back towards the restaurant.

"Ianto?"

"Yes?"

"If you happen to see any giant black birds circling around in the next few minutes..."

"How likely is that?"

"Whatever I'm drinking at the time, make it a triple."


	4. Thursday

Thursday

Jenny learned a new word.

It was funny how it worked, with words. She understood that she was complicated, compared to Donna and the Torchwood team, maybe compared to her father, although he surely won the _complicated_ competition. But he had tried to explain to her how her language worked

"Your grasp of language was inbuilt. Your vocabulary comes from me but at the same time, the machine filtered out most words that weren't necessary to your development as a soldier. So, you'll find many, many words that you'll sort of learn all over again."

Jenny could understand what he meant. More and more, she heard words that were familiar, that she knew she should know. She supposed it was like learning a new language. No matter how good you were, there were always words you might struggle with.

She had first heard the word, _coincidence,_ in something Donna said and asked her for the meaning. Donna was good at meanings. She took it seriously that the word had to be properly explained and even tried to give examples.

"It's like if you were thinking of something and I happened to mention it out loud. Or if you really, really wanted a cup of coffee," Donna had said, "and you didn't say it to anyone and suddenly I brought you one. That would be a coincidence."

"That would be great," the Doctor said fervently.

"Only two a week, remember?" Donna said sternly.

"It could also mean that Donna was psychic though, don't forget," the Doctor continued.

He tended to like to complicate these discussions.

"I know psychic," Jenny said, thinking about it, "psychic links. Psychic paper."

But a better example of _coincidence_ happened a few days after the visit to Tero.

They had visited the beach. Well, it was also fair to say that they had _escaped to_ the beach and sat for ages, admiring the purple stones. The stones from Tero were fascinating. Left to themselves, they were simply stones, albeit brightly coloured ones. Pick them up and they turned into a jelly-like substance. She liked the feel of them between her fingers.

"That enough running for you?" the Doctor asked, still sounding slightly breathless. They had been chased for what seemed like miles across the desert.

"Their attitude toward the women is completely prehistoric," she said simply.

"Well, so is yours."

"_What?"_

He sat down beside her.

"Jenny, I know what you were trying to do and the end result you wanted...but getting it by force isn't the way. The women looked terrified, didn't you notice? They were facing yet another tyrant when they looked at you. If you really want to empower someone, you do just that. You give them back their power. You put them in control."

"Where would you even start?"

"It's not easy. Forcing your hand with weapons, that's instant results, sure. But integrating yourself into their community, finding the women most open to listening to you, engaging them, listening to them, understanding them and convincing them could take years and years. But _that_ would last."

"Is that what you want me to do?"

"No." He smiled gently at her. "Someone already did. You should see them in 100 years time!"

_That's the only reason?_

As if he'd read her mind, he took her hand. "Having only just found you, it'll be a long time yet before you're allowed to disappear for years on end!" He turned towards the TARDIS murmuring something about needing to be gone before the second sun appeared.

"I never seem to know the right thing to do," Jenny said, but she kept her voice low, unsure of whether she wanted him to hear her or not.

When no reply came, she trailed after him into the TARDIS. She knew she should appreciate this time alone with her father but somehow she found herself longing for Donna to come back from her visit home. With Donna around, the atmosphere was light and cheery. She didn't allow either of them to take themselves too seriously. Left alone, just the two of them, the awkwardness crept back. Maybe it was just that they'd not had enough time to know how to be easy with each other and it was too handy to use Donna as a mask.

He was her father so by rights there shouldn't be any awkwardness. There shouldn't be this endless politeness. But equally well, they barely knew each other so close familiarity was inappropriate. Finding a middle ground was definitely going to take some time.

"What was your favourite bit this time?" he asked, startling her from her thoughts.

Jenny considered. He often asked that question. What did you think of this? Which did you prefer? Sometimes he loved her answers and other times, he would just nod calmly without a comment as if filing the information away for another time.

"I'm sorry," she said, "it's not that I haven't loved been threatened with disembowelment and chased through the wilderness but I really liked going shopping with Donna."

She was puzzled to see her father smiling warmly at her.

"I knew you'd enjoy the shopping! Nothing like a Saturday afternoon around the shops with a friend!" He looked delighted for some reason, as if she had just mastered one of the impossibly complex theories he was trying to teach her, on and off.

"It wasn't a Saturday," she said, trying to smile back but the memory of that evening still troubled her. There had been no bad consequences, and surely _something_ would have happened by now if she had done anything really bad but still...

Then Jack's voice had come through over the console and the Doctor had lectured him for a few moments on how the communication system was for emergencies only.

"If you gave me a chance to speak, it might _be_ an emergency," Jack said, "is Donna back?"

"No. She wants to visit her friend tomorrow so we're giving her a few days."

"Doctor, I'd pick her up now if I were you," Jack said, "the weather's crazy and there's no predicting what's going to happen or where. According to the weather reports, we should be having calm, settled weather. Instead there's freak hurricanes dotted here and there! No warning. No nothing. And plenty of damage."

Jenny felt like her stomach was turning inside-out.

The Doctor pressed a few buttons on the console and stared at a screen in front of him.

"Nothing visible from up here anyway," he commented.

"Doctor," Jack's voice sounded suddenly hesitant, "what do you know about fairies?"

And that was the coincidence.

The only puzzling thing was that the Doctor's reply had nothing to do with _small, friendly spirits with wings_.


	5. Friday

Friday

The Torchwood hub was empty by the time the TARDIS materialised. Jack had sent the team home. In the last three days, no one had had any sleep and when it got to the point of worrying about peoples' abilities to stand up straight, it was really time to get them away from the machinery. There wasn't even that much for them all to do which seemed strange given that hurricanes were raging across the country at random but all they could do was head to worst hit places and survey the damage.

And that's all there was. Damage. No children in danger. Nobody suffocated by petals. Of course that was a good thing but it also made him feel increasingly uneasy. It was as if every person in the country was being held to ransom, threatened by forces by nature and for what?

He squinted at the view of Cardiff bay in front of him. For a second there, if he looked hard enough, it seemed that all he could see were trees. Lines and lines of trees...and a heavy mist covering the petals on the ground...

He shook his head. Clearly his team weren't the only ones in need of sleep.

He watched as the TARDIS doors open and smiled at Jenny's face as she took in the difference in the place since the last time she'd been.

"What do you think?" Jack asked her.

"Much better!" She grinned at him. "It feels more _real_."

"Untidy, you mean."

She gazed around her.

"It's like there's energy in the walls...like it has its own heartbeat."

"Rift energy. Not everyone can sense it. Well done!"

The Doctor raced over to a screen and began to examine it intently.

"Hello to you too," Jack said pointedly and when he was ignored, "You took your time."

"Someone else did that."

"What?"

"We headed to Earth five minutes ago. Whatever's going on here is affecting the Time Vortex, Jack. We just got lucky that I spotted it. Could have been weeks getting here. The Rift guided us in. That's why we're here and I'm going to need your Vortex Manipulator before we go any further. Can't risk the same thing happening before I get to Donna."

Jack unstrapped his wrist device and laid it down on the desk beside him.

"Can you see the creatures?"

"They don't show up on anything."

"Even the TARDIS?"

"I can detect their energy. That's about it, and even then, only when I know what I'm looking for. I should have known. They interfere with time...and time travelling. The TARDIS would never have taken Donna and Jenny away without me. But I'd been experimenting with the controls, thought it was my own doing. And there was nothing...nothing to see, no consequences. They were back in minutes."

"The TARDIS just took them away?"

The Doctor nodded absently. "I understand _how_ but I have to say, the _whys_ of this situation are baffling me and it's not many species who can do that." He surveyed Jack in silence.

"You're worried, Jack."

"And you're not? Have you seen these things in action?"

He tried very hard not to think of the last person he'd known not to take _fairies_ seriously.

"Time and nature. Two things you humans have no control over. Well, most of you anyway." He watched Jack for a moment more then turned back to the screen.

Jack let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. He opened his mouth to ask a question but Jenny caught hold of his arm and signalled to him that she wanted to say something. She also appeared to not want the Doctor to hear her.

"I wondered..." She was clearly trying her best to sound off-hand, "about these things that are happening with the weather. Would time-travelling cause them? If you, accidently, maybe changed something. Something small...but still..."

"Why do you ask that?" Jack asked, hoping that the jolt that question had given him hadn't transferred itself into his voice.

"No...I just wondered," Jenny said quickly. "I just thought maybe...with all the time travelling we do..."

"The Doctor has that under control," Jack said. He looked at her, curious now. Clearly something was worrying her.

"Yeah...'course he does," she agreed vaguely.

She followed Jack back to the screen where the Doctor, as if only becoming aware of their presence, turned around to them.

"Your communication systems are down," he said.

"They've been like that for the best part of the week. We fix them and the weather kicks off and we fix them again."

"Your communications systems shouldn't be affected by the weather."

"Exactly!"

The Doctor tapped a few buttons. "I must say, this weather is remarkably localised. Apart from yesterday. Why might that be?"

"Yesterday it settled for a few hours," Jack said, "that's why I was able to contact you."

"Funny. A few hours."

"Sometimes it can come and go."

"Like me," the Doctor said.

"You said it."

"And like the TARDIS."

"What?"

"Every time the weather settles down, Jack, corresponds with the times that the TARDIS hasn't been on Earth."

"Oh....so that would mean..." The sensation of cold water down his back was so intense, he almost reached up to see if his shirt was wet.

"Something's trying very hard to get my attention."

"Much as I sympathise with them on that score, it doesn't sound good."

"When you contacted me yesterday, Jenny and I were touring around Tero. Well, I say _touring_ but it was more like..."

"Running for your lives?" Jack smirked, despite the situation. "What'd you do, Jenny? Jenny?"

He turned around.

"Jenny! Where are you gone? You can't just wander around here!"

"She'll take that as a challenge," the Doctor murmured.

Jack glanced around at the row of screens over their heads.

"Doctor, she's gone. She's not showing up anywhere."

The Doctor spun around.

"TARDIS is still here. Seriously, I wouldn't put it past her to...Jack? What is it?"

"My Vortex Manipulator's gone!"

"_What?"_

"It was on that desk."

"Are you sure?" The Doctor looked wildly at the screens. "You're sure she's not here? Jenny!"

"She was asking me if this weather's been caused by a time-traveller making a mistake."

_Please say it couldn't possibly be._

The Doctor turned back to him and his eyes were like steel.

"Your Vortex Manipulator can't time-travel at the moment."

"Well..."

"Jack, please tell me your Vortex Manipulator can't time-travel at the moment."

"Let's just go," Jack said, "we can track it. Find her."

Desperately he glanced at the screens, as if hoping for divine intervention. The Doctor had already strode across the hub and towards the waiting TARDIS.

"Hang on!" Jack felt weak with relief at the sight on the screen above him. "She's here! Doctor, she's at the vaults." He spoke into the nearest intercom. "Jenny! Get back here!"

The girl turned to the screen and gave him a cheeky smile before making her way down the hallway.

"It's alright," Jack repeated.

"Is it?" The Doctor's voice sounded suddenly cold. "You're wondering why the world outside is apparently falling apart, Jack and in the meantime, you're all sailing off into the mists of time whenever the fancy takes you!"

"Jenny didn't have a choice! The TARDIS took them!"

"But you do."

"What?"

"It's written all over your face, Jack. You've done something. You think you're responsible for this."

"I don't! This was going on long before I..." Realising he'd walked into a trap, Jack decided to shut up for the time being. Jenny had appeared in front of them. Her face was slightly pale but there was something defiant in her face. She tossed the Vortex Manipulator on the desk.

"Just testing it." She looked up at them and her smile faded.

"What's wrong?"

"What did you do?" The Doctor's voice was cold.

"Nothing." Jenny met his gaze. "I didn't go anywhere with it. Well, not outside the building anyway."

"Why did you ask Jack about time travelling and mistakes?"

Jenny shot Jack of pure daggers and when she turned back to the Doctor, her eyes were bright with indignation.

"You think I'm the cause of this?"

"It's crossed my mind."

"Why? Why does it always have to be me? Because I'm not like the others? Because I'm only a _clone?"_ She spat the last word out as if she could hardly bear to say it.

Jack waited for the Doctor to protest that he, least of anyone, thought of Jenny that way but instead, he surveyed her as if she was an interesting species he was studying.

"Into the TARDIS, both of you," he said shortly, "we're going to get Donna before this gets any worse and _then_ we're going to talk."

He walked ahead of them.

In the silence, Jack winked at Jenny, trying somehow to make up for the Doctor's lack of response.

"Something tells me we're in for a bollocking," he whispered to her.


	6. Friday continued

Friday (continued)

Donna braked sharply as she heard the scrape of metal against the pavement.

"Sorry! It's like I've forgotten how to drive. It's the movement, I suppose, after..." She stopped, remembering who she was talking to. How much did Alice know about the Doctor? She couldn't remember much of that hazy afternoon when they'd been introduced.

"All the travelling?" Alice asked, her eyes narrowed.

"Yeah." Donna opened the door and stepped quickly out of the car. Alice was one of her best friends and she deserved to know why Donna kept disappearing for weeks and months on end but it was a conversation to be had at a quieter time, and definitely, in a quieter place.

Nerys' long driveway was populated cars and people. She'd always enjoyed a fuss, Donna thought, it was almost inevitable that the baby's arrival would be a great excuse for a large get-together

As if reading her thoughts, Alice laughed slightly.

"This is very Nerys, isn't it? A few people say they'll call to see the baby; she turns it into a garden party!"

"Yeah. But at least the weather calmed down." Donna tried to return her smile as they approached the house. She couldn't quite explain it but after her travels, it was situations like this that seemed surreal to her. People, situations, places she'd known her life...they were the things that seemed out of place. Or maybe it was her. Maybe she didn't belong with any of them anymore. She pushed the thought out of her head.

Somewhere inside the house, there was the sound of raised voices.

"Off to a good start then," Donna muttered as she pressed her finger on the bell.

"Here's the rain again," Alice said, as the first drops began to fall. She knocked sharply on the front door.

Inside the house, there was the sound of running footsteps.

"Come on! We're getting drenched!" Alice called.

The door was pulled open and Nerys stood in front of them.

"Nerys?"

Donna managed to stop herself from stepping backwards at the sight of her friend. Nerys' face was pale, her make-up in streaks along her face and her eyes bright with unshed tears. She stared at Donna and Alice as if she'd never seen them before.

"Nerys, what's wrong?" Donna asked. Alice put an arm around her.

"Tough morning?" she asked gently.

Nerys' eyes searched her face as if looking for clues.

"Donna?" she whispered finally.

"What's wrong?" Donna asked, her voice sounding sharper than she'd intended.

"The baby," Nerys whispered.

"Is she ok?"

"She..." Nerys' voice shook with a quiet desperation that was almost as frightening as her ravaged face. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Alice whispered.

Donna started to speak but Nerys' mother appeared behind them. She put an arm around her shoulders and seeing Donna and Alice, smiled warmly at them.

"It's alright, darling," she said, "the baby's right here. You know that." She turned her daughter in towards her shoulder and mouthed to them over her bent head.

"She's not very well."

Donna tried to speak but found she could think of absolutely nothing to say. Alice offered a shaky smile to Nerys' mother who looked drawn and tired.

"It's nice to see you, Tina," she said.

"Come in!" Still guiding Nerys, she led them into the hallway.

"Go and wash your face, darling, and you can have a nice chat with your friends," she said.

Nerys said nothing but turned and climbed the stairs. As soon as she was out of sight, Tina's smile faded and she sank heavily into a chair.

"I've had to cancel most of the guests," she said, "I tried to leave in anyone who might be good for her. She's in a right state."

"What did she mean, the baby's gone?" Alice asked.

"She's...well, very depressed, I suppose. But it's started so suddenly. She was fine until yesterday. She thinks the baby's been swapped."

"What, in the hospital?"

"No! Since last night! She refuses to go near her. Says it's not Ellie, that Ellie's been taken away and a strange baby left in her place. I can't do a thing with her."

Donna sat opposite her, "that's awful. She was so happy. Last time I spoke to her..."

"See what you can do," Tina said, "I've tried, Philip's tried. She won't listen to us. If you can talk her into going to the doctor, maybe she'll go with you." Her voice shook.

Donna reached into her pocket for her phone. She should ring the Doctor, tell him that she wouldn't be ready to leave for a few days. She certainly couldn't leave Nerys at a time like this.

"I'll just..." she started to say but stopped when she saw Nerys in the doorway, clutching a white bundle in her arms.

"Good girl!" Her mother stood up. "Come on, sit down and show Ellie off to the girls! They're dying to see her!"

Without a word, Nerys sat down and Donna and Alice crouched beside her, gazing into the tiny sleeping face against her arm.

"Nerys, she's beautiful," Donna said.

"You can hold her," Nerys said, her voice expressionless as she stood and handed the baby carefully to Donna.

"Thanks," Donna said uncertainly, as she sat. Alice rubbed the baby's cheek.

"Hello Ellie," she said.

"Don't call her that!" Nerys said sharply, "she's not Ellie!"

"Oh Nerys..."

"No! I'm showing her to you and I'm showing you this. _This_ is Ellie." Nerys pulled a photograph out of her pocket and handed it to them.

"See? That's my Ellie."

"Nerys." Alice sounded like she was afraid to put too much expression into her voice. "This is the same baby. See? Ellie's right here."

"Donna?" Nerys stared at her, as if issuing a challenge.

Donna reached over the baby for her friend's hand. "Nerys, I know you're upset and we'll stay as long as you want. But everything's ok. This is your baby. She's beautiful and she looks like you. She looks like her sisters..."

For a horrible second, she thought Nerys would hit her and she tightened her hold on the sleeping child. But almost as quickly, her whole body seemed to sag, whether with exhaustion or sheer defeat she couldn't tell.

"Donna?" Tina put her head around the door, "someone's here for you, love."

"What?" Donna started to hand the baby to Alice but before she could move, the door was pushed open and the Doctor walked uncertainly in.

"Sorry," he said quickly, "she insisted I come in." He looked, as always, completely out of place in the colourful domesticity of their surroundings. He also looked as if she was trying to suppress a smile as he took in the sight of Donna holding the baby.

"Hello Alice! And you must be Nerys?" His smile faded slightly at the sight of her tear-stained face. "You have a beautiful new arrival!"

"Come outside with me," Donna said quickly, managing to hand the baby over to Alice who gave her a helpless look.

"No, wait." Nerys marched over to the Doctor with her photograph. "_You_ have a look. Everyone else has. This is my baby. That one," she nodded at the bundle on Alice's lap, "isn't a bit like her. I can't understand why no one can see it!""

"Nerys, honestly..." Alice began.

"No, I can't either," the Doctor murmured.

"_What?"_ Nerys and Alice turned stunned faces to him in one movement.

"It's not the same baby," the Doctor said, as if this fact was perfectly obviously.

"Do you think this is some sort of joke?" Alice said, her voice thunderous.

"If you're saying that you don't know where the baby in the photo is, then no. I wouldn't say it's remotely funny."

Nerys gave a little sob.

"The baby in the photo is this baby right here!" Alice spluttered.

"No, it isn't," the Doctor replied.

Nerys stared at him, tears running down her cheeks.

"You believe me?" she whispered.

He nodded solemnly.

"Don't listen to him, Nerys," Alice said, "I'm going to get your mother, ok?"

As the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the hallway, the Doctor turned to Donna.

"So?" he said lightly. "What do you think?"

Donna stared at Nerys who looked as if she was keeping herself upright by sheer force of will.

"If you say the baby's different, then the baby's different," she said to both of them.

Nerys sagged slightly in her chair.

"When did you first notice?" the Doctor asked.

"This morning," Nerys said shakily, "when we were up in the night, everything was fine. She was feeding, crying, everything normal. And then...I woke up early, went into her and..." Her voice broke.

"She was different?"

"It wasn't her. I saw it straight away. Her eyes were different. She didn't recognise me."

"Nerys, she's three weeks old." Tina stood in her doorway. Two pink spots flushed in each cheek and from memory, Donna knew this wasn't a good sign.

"I asked you here to help her," she said accusingly to Donna and then turned to the Doctor.

"Whoever you are, I want you to leave. Now. Upsetting my daughter when she's already upset enough! If you think you're being clever, well, you can go and be clever somewhere else!"

"Fair enough," the Doctor said calmly. He stood up and gestured to Donna. Then, in one swift movement, he bent over Nerys and whispered to her.

"Out! Now!" Tina sounded enraged.

"We'll help you, Nerys," Donna said softly as she turned to follow the Doctor.

But Alice was in front of her.

"I want a word with you," she said to the Doctor.

"Alice, he didn't mean..." Donna trailed off realising she hadn't a clue about what to say.

Alice ignored her. She took the Doctor's arm and before he could react, marched him outside. Donna stopped and stared out of the window at them. Instead of shouting, as she'd expected Alice to do, her friend was talking urgently to him. Once or twice, the Doctor glanced back at the house, his face expressionless. The wind was picking up again, she noticed.

Her whole world felt stranger than any planet she'd ever visited.

Nerys got up and stood beside her.

"Promise me you'll get her back?"

Donna hesitated and looked around. Tina was staring at her as if she'd transformed into something completely unknown to them all. Nerys, her best friend, stripped of everything except a frightening desperation.

"I promise," she said.


	7. Fridaycontinued

"Hold on! We can't just leave!" Donna struggled against the Doctor's vice-like grip on her arm as he pulled her toward the TARDIS. She glanced helplessly back at Alice who stood watching them in the rain, her arms tight around herself whether from cold or fear, it was hard to tell.

"The longer we stay in that house, the more at risk we put the family," the Doctor said.

"But the baby! What's happened? We have to..."

"We will! Come on!"

The wind was picking up quickly. Behind them, a door slammed as Alice returned into the house. As if the sound had awoken something, a gust shrieked past them, almost knocking Donna off balance. The raindrops were so large that they were almost painful on her skin.

"What's going on?"

"It's us! It's worse wherever we are," was all the Doctor said and she couldn't be sure she heard him properly against the wailing sound all around them.

Suddenly the wind seemed to the pushing her, far more than the Doctor's strength. Donna found herself clutching his arm as she narrowly avoided being knocked straight into a nearby tree.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked as she grabbed the tree with her other hand, trying to maintain her balance.

She nodded, gasping for breath.

"It's our fault...Nerys...and the weather?"

"'Course not. Whatever's happening, we're getting in their way. So we have to make sure we keep doing just that. Come on!"

"_Whose_ way?"

But he was steering her along again and now the TARDIS was in sight. Half dragging each other, they burst through the doors where Jack and Jenny were sitting in silence. The door blew behind them with such force that it took Jack and the Doctor's bodies to close it again.

"Are you ok?" Jenny asked.

"At the moment," the Doctor's voice, despite the exertion, was calm and cold as he surveyed her, "no one's ok. And until you start talking..."

"I don't know what to say! What do you want me to say? That this is all down to me? We have to get out of here, that's all I know!"

"We don't run away," the Doctor said shortly.

Donna stared at them and the open anger on each face. She'd seen them argue before. She'd seen Jenny do everything in her power to assert herself. But she'd never seen them like this.

She hadn't realised that tears were running down her cheeks until Jack put a hand on her shoulder and shook it gently, as if trying to wake her from a bad dream.

"What's happened?" he asked and something in his eyes told her that he wasn't looking forward to hearing her response.

..............................................................................

"It's not their usual _modus operandi_ to steal babies," Jack said.

They were sitting around the console.

"Well if you're saying that all fairytales are suddenly real," Donna said bitterly, "what about changelings? Children being swapped by fairies...that's what happened here, isn't it?"

"That's a myth," the Doctor said dismissively.

"Oh _that's_ a myth! Well tell me, Mr Clever...how exactly are we supposed to figure out what's real and what's not?"

The Doctor didn't take the bait and deep down, Donna had to admire him for it. She knew she was being unreasonable but that didn't make it easy to stop.

"Because I'm telling you," he said calmly.

"Well, tell me faster then! I promised her we'd help, remember?"

"No." The Doctor looked at her seriously. "You promised her you'd get her baby back. That was a big promise to make, Donna, when you didn't know what we were up against."

"But..." Donna stared at him, feeling as if he'd unbalanced her somehow, "you knew there was something wrong. I knew you'd know what to do. I mean..."

"I do," he said, stopping her frantic train of thought, "at least, I hope I do. All I'm saying is that sometimes you need to think before you promise that everything's going to turn out alright." His face clouded over slightly.

"Well it will. She's my friend. I know I can help her. Doctor?" She was nearly afraid to ask the question.

"Yes?"

"That baby...if it's not Ellie...what is it?"

"It's one of _them_."

"But you said changelings were a myth."

The Doctor rubbed his forehead tiredly. "I've never seen this before. Since there's been humans, there's been fairies. You co-exist and in many ways, it's a symbiotic relationship. They feed off the energy that your relationship with time provides them. In turn, they provide a balance between time and nature. And that gets disturbed. Sometimes you cause it. Sometimes they do. Sometimes, it just happens. You're important to each other. But you're also a very real threat to the continued existence of each other."

"But they steal children," Jack said.

"They have Chosen Ones, yes. And they'll fight to the death to protect them. But this is different. This isn't anything I've ever seen them do before."

Donna blanched inwardly at the sober expression on his face.

"So why did we leave that baby there, with Nerys and her family?"

"Did you want to be arrested for kidnapping?"

"They're not safe!"

"They're perfectly safe. For whatever reason, that creature is where it wants to be, or where the rest of them want it to be. No one will get hurt as long as they protect it. That's what I told Nerys before we left...to act like everything's normal, to care for the child just as she would for her own. It's our only chance of buying enough time to work out what's going on here."

"It's not enough! We can't just leave them!" Donna turned blindly towards the door.

But Jack was there first. He stood in front of the door blocking her entrance.

"Let me out!"

"You need to listen to the Doctor first! Donna, these creatures could destroy the whole earth right now if they decided to. We can't track them. We can't stop them. If that child in there gets hurt, we're dead. And the rest of the world is at their mercy."

"But she's my friend!"

"I know," the Doctor said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "believe me, Donna, I do know."

"So what do we do?"

"We're going to find them," the Doctor said, "we're going to ask them, fair and square, what's going on."

"Doctor, you can't just reason with..."

"I can reason with anyone, Jack, I've got reasoning down to an art form." For some reason he turned to stare at Jenny.

"Everyone gets one chance."

"Good luck with that then," Jack muttered.

"I'm going back to check on Nerys first," Donna said.

"No!" The Doctor held her shoulder tighter. "Donna, you don't go anywhere without me. Do you hear me?"

"_What?"_

"I mean it."

"I'll go with her," Jenny said and Donna suddenly realised that the blond girl had been remarkably quiet since their return to the TARDIS. She smiled at her and started to speak but the Doctor interrupted again.

"You'll do nothing of the sort!"

Donna turned to stare at him. His voice was hard and cold as he surveyed Jenny.

"She's only trying to help."

"Yeah." The Doctor sounded as near as he ever got to sarcastic.

"I didn't do anything!" Jenny's voice was high-pitched with frustration. "It's you who won't trust me with anything!"

"Doctor, leave her alone," Donna muttered.

"Never mind that now. Donna, this is important. When we go out there, you stay with me. If I'm out of sight and Jack's out of sight, you find one of us. Quickly. Very quickly. Got it?"

"Very gallant of you both but..."

"Got it? Or I lock you in here?"

"I'd like to see you try!" She looked at his face again and realised that he was probably capable of carrying out the threat.

"Ok, fine, whatever. Let's go."

Jack pulled the door open.

For a moment, all she could see was sunlight on water and it was blinding her. There was a second when she wondered how they could have travelled, how the TARDIS had managed, once again, to take them to some unknown destination without so much as a whispered direction. She turned to stare at the Doctor in bewilderment.

"Where are we?"

The Doctor was staring straight ahead with an expression on his face that was almost frightening. He didn't reply so Jack obliged.

"Donna, I'm afraid we're...we're right where we were a few minutes ago."

Donna looked wildly around and suddenly realised that he was right.


	8. Saturday

Saturday

"No!" The Doctor shook his head, as if trying to rid it of a highly unwelcome thought. "This isn't right!"

"You've only realised this _now_?" Jack asked.

"It's not meant to happen...It _can't_ be." He looked around wildly and turned to Jenny, searching her face with his eyes. Jenny met his gaze calmly. Too calmly, given the scene in front of them. Donna turned back to it.

Even though the light looked like dusk, streaks of orange light across it seemed to suggest sunset but it was _wrong_...it was just _wrong_.

"Morning," the Doctor said and his voice was calmer, as if he were forcing himself to try and think straight. "We've lost a night getting here. Their time travel is causing havoc with ours."

"But we haven't _gone_ anywhere," Donna said. That much was obvious to her now. It was the house, Nerys' house that alerted her to the fact. Standing in the middle of what looked like a choppy sea, the row of houses looked horribly surreal.

"Still think you can just go up and talk to them?" Jack asked bitterly.

"Absolutely." The Doctor was still staring into the distance, as if he could see something invisible to the rest of them."

"My family though..." Donna said urgently, "and Nerys...what's happened to them?"

"They're in no immediate danger."

"What? The streets are nearly under the sea! And you think there's no immediate danger? Are you out of your mind?"

"No but I'll tell what we all are and that's out of our _time_."

"What?"

"Look closely, Donna. These creatures are good at destruction but they're not that good."

Donna glanced uncomprehendingly at the houses across from them. It took her a moment to realise what he meant. On closer inspection, the houses were not what they seemed.

"They look..."

"Derelict, yes."

"We're in the future." Jack said flatly.

Jenny was staring at them miserably. Despite her shock, Donna couldn't help noticing that the girl didn't look in any way surprised. Miserable, yes. But not surprised.

"We're in the future," the Doctor confirmed, "years later by the looks of it."

"Some sort of hallucination?" Donna ventured. It was true that the scene around her couldn't get much more surreal. The familiar streets in the midst of the still film of water and then you looked at it, really looked at it and it was a wasteland. The smashed windows. The walls crumbling at the tops. The faded signs. The people.

People!

"Doctor..." She began. But he was already seen.

"Oh God," Jack murmured softly.

In front of a building that should have been a shop, there were steps leading up to a fire escape and gathered on the step were five young people. They huddled and watched with their eyes fixed on some point near the TARDIS. They showed no interest however. Their clothes, sodden in places, were ill-fitting and faded. Their eyes...

"What's wrong with them?"

"What's right with them?" Jack asked bitterly. "It's like a war zone. And I'm guessing someone else won the war."

It was also cold. Very cold. Beside her, Jenny was shivering. Donna put an arm around her and nearly jumped back when she felt the extent of her shaking.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Tears ran down Jenny's face. She didn't reply.

"So we go back and stop this happening?" Jack asked. "Doctor, we can get to them in our time. You have the TARDIS. We have the Rift. Surely between us, we can summon up enough energy to make them tangible. We can send them away. We can send them anywhere. Into the void even! This doesn't need to happen."

The Doctor still looked far-away. Donna wanted to shake him.

"WB Yeats once said that the country of the people of Faery was the heart of the world," he said finally.

"The whole world's falling apart here and you want to discuss _poetry_?"

"There's worse things," the Doctor said lightly, "like starting a war when you've no idea what you're fighting."

"I know what they're capable of, if that's what you're saying," Jack said and Donna had never heard that note of bitterness in his voice before.

"And if you know so much, you'll also know that most myths are in actual fact, a distorted version of history."

Jack took a deep breath, as if desperately trying to hold back an eruption of words but the Doctor turned to face him.

"I'm sorry," he said and his quiet gaze took in Donna, "I'm so sorry but you're not going to like what I have to tell you."

The abrupt change in tone seemed to stop Jack in his tracks.

"Go into the TARDIS," the Doctor continued, "talk to your team. Ask them what's going on right now. Donna, go with him. I want to talk to Jenny."

Donna walked up to the Doctor and whispered in his ear.

"_Talk_ to her, don't fight. She's terrified."

The Doctor gave her a long look and nodded slowly. Patting Jenny's shoulder, Donna followed Jack. She turned back at the door and watched the Doctor slowly approach Jenny. Jenny gazed up at him solemnly and Donna noticed, not for the first time, how she could sometimes look so old and yet so young, in the same moment.

"I'm right, aren't I?" he asked her quietly.

Jenny nodded.

Donna forced herself to turn away, hoping that whatever he was right about, wasn't about to make things worse.

Inside the TARDIS, Jack was talking into a screen on the console.

"Six?" he was asking.

"And counting," Ianto's voice came back to them, "the last two came in the last ten minutes."

"Not a coincidence then," Jack said.

"We're not that lucky," Ianto replied, "Jack, if this..."

He was cut off as the screen went fuzzy and then blank.

Jack was gripping the edge of the console as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. When he noticed Donna, he stood up straight.

"There's been six more reports of women convinced that their babies are different," he said, "all within a six mile radius of here. The hospitals are hushing it up. Nobody knows what to do with them. One or two, you could say..."

"That they were ill, like I thought about Nerys," Donna said.

"Yeah." Jack looked around, as if for inspiration.

"Donna, these creatures have stolen children for centuries. Chosen Ones, they call them and God help anyone who gets in their way. But this..." He came away from the console and walked slowly around it.

"I knew someone, years ago, and she thought fairies were these beautiful little creatures who hid in the woods and danced in the moonlight."

"Can't blame her. Up until today, I'd have clapped my hands to keep Tinkerbell alive."

That made Jack smile.

"Come on," he said, "at least this time, we've got them scared."

"This time? You've seen them before?"

"Come on," Jack repeated, taking her arm and leading her back outside.

Outside, the Doctor and Jenny were still talking quietly together. He turned around at the sound of the TARDIS door closing and his face was focused on Jack.

"Well?"

"Six cases of women reporting that their babies are different."

"I don't understand," Donna said, "you say that Nerys' baby has been swapped for one of these...creatures. And she has to look after it. But then you say changelings are myths."

"And myths are based on fact," Jack added.

"Getting it now?" the Doctor asked.

"It's happened before," Jack breathed. He looked at the Doctor expectantly.

"When?"

But the Doctor's face disturbed Donna. It was as if the sight of the ruined streets around him, his daughter's tear-stained face, Jack's tension, the gathering gloom in the sky...none of that was bothering him as much as whatever was playing out in his mind.

"What does it mean?" she asked him as gently as she could.

It was as if he didn't hear her.

"Santorini," he said softly, "Mount Tambora, Pompeii...you know how Edvard Munch described Krakatoa? _An endless scream passing through nature..."_

"From poetry to art," Jack said and then, quietly, "Doctor, you're scaring me."

The Doctor looked at him and their eyes locked together as if they were sharing the same thought.

"Changelings," he said slowly, "fairies returned to a human body to be found in another time. And they do it for one reason and one reason only. Protection. They see humans as being so much further removed from nature than they are." He gave a harsh laugh. "They think you're more protected from it.

"They've only ever occurred when the Earth is about to rip itself apart. No aliens. No wars. Just nature. The one thing none of us can really control. Not them. Not you."

Jack waved a hand towards the expanse of water. "This is the result of some kind of natural disaster? Doctor, how can you be sure that the fairies aren't causing it? It's how they work."

The Doctor shot Jenny a look that Donna couldn't fathom.

"They're not fighting us," he said, "They're trying to _warn_ us."


	9. Saturday continued

"A volcano in _London?"_ Jack sounded more than a little sceptical.

"Apparently," the Doctor said, "although...it doesn't have to be a volcano. Lots of reasons for nature going haywire. Could be anything." He looked around, as if for inspiration.

"Then why are we here?" Jack asked him. "Why aren't we where it happened? _When_ it happened? What's the point in bringing us here to see the carnage. I'm telling you, Doctor, they're toying with us."

The Doctor didn't reply and by some unspoken agreement, they walked along the thin ledge of pavement that separated them from the swirling waters. Donna found it was easier to pretend that the entire place was unknown to her. Better to look at the water, then the houses above it that she had spent her childhood running alongside. Better even to focus on the the sky which was a colour it should _never_ be and the straggling plants in the cracked earth that wouldn't have survived on British soils for more than a few minutes in her time. Better to pretend it was a whole new planet, a different world altogether.

Now they were drawing near to the group of people who were watching their approach with apprehension on their faces.

"Hello," the Doctor said cautiously, "could you tell us..."

He got no further. The four people leapt to their feet, never taking their eyes off the Doctor.

The Doctor stared calmly back and quietly, he spoke again.

"It's ok. We're here to help. I'm the Doctor, this is Donna and those two behind me..." Lowering his voice, he whispered to Donna, "neither of them are brandishing guns, are they?"

Donna shook her head.

"...are Jack and Jenny," the Doctor finished. "And you are...?"

But the people still stared at him in undisguised horror. One of the girls tugged at the sleeve of the oldest man and gestured towards his coat.

"They're armed," Jack murmured and as his hand went to his coat, he stepped smartly in front of the Doctor. As one, the group of people stepped rapidly backwards.

"Don't you dare, Jack" the Doctor muttered, never taking his eyes off the group huddled in front of them, "particularly on my account."

Jack inclined his head slightly to murmur back:

"_Always_ on your account, Doctor. I told you before, I _like_ this regeneration."

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond but in the same instant, one of the men pulled a ragged linen bag out of his coat and threw it at the Doctor's feet. He turned and ran, his companions in close pursuit.

"It's like they couldn't understand us," Donna said.

"Quite possibly," the Doctor said, his face troubled.

"Is the world really this far gone?" Jack asked.

"Apparently." The Doctor bent down and picked up the bag that the man had dropped. He opened it cautiously and held it out to Donna.

"This is what they thought we were after," he said.

The bag contained three tins of food, the labels torn and tattered.

"And this is obviously valuable," Jack said flatly.

"We should go back," Jenny said, her voice urgent.

"I agree," Jack said, "we can't do anything from here. All we can do is go back and make sure this never happens. We know it's not supposed to be in our future."

"We keep going," the Doctor said, "we can't change anything without knowing what exactly we're changing."

"It's not safe," Jack replied and for some reason he glanced at Donna as he said it, "there's floodwater everywhere. We don't know the patterns. You can't predict what they're going to do!"

For a long moment, they faced each other and Donna could almost sense an invisible battle of wills. She bit back the angry question she'd been about to ask about why they were both suddenly treating her as if she were a china doll.

"We need answers," the Doctor said quietly.

"Fine." Jack turned away and marched ahead of them.

Donna wondered if she was imagining it but the Doctor looked quite smug.

"Men," she muttered to Jenny who looked up at her as if startled at the sound of her voice. Donna looked closely at her.

"You look terrible. Are you ok?"

Jenny nodded but she was so pale that her face almost looked transparent. As she walked alongside Donna, something in her movement suggested that every step was an effort.

"What's wrong?" Donna asked, holding out an arm to stop her.

"I'm fine," Jenny said. Her voice sounded strange and flat, more like an echo of itself.

Donna kept hold of her arm and looked ahead, opening her mouth to call the Doctor but she stopped when she noticed where she was. The local park. Her favourite spot for a morning coffee on the way to work, or a stroll by the river at weekends.

Now it was a forest.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound that should have been the slight drip and ripple of the river was a rushing, pulling sound like a stormy ocean. Around them, plants and shrubs curled around the trees, completely covering the stones and benches she knew so well. A stream wound its way down a slope ahead of them. Everything was green and wild and full of movement, a furious spiralling all around them.

"It's...." She stopped, unable to say anything more. The bag of food dropped from her hand and the tins rolled through curled pathways between roots and ragged weeds. She barely noticed.

From somewhere in the distance, the sound of the wind and water sounded like laughter, as if nature itself was amused at their efforts to keep abreast of it.

"Sounds like children playing," she said, hoping her voice didn't give away the sudden rush of fear that ran through her.

Jenny raised her head, listening.

"It wasn't us," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"It wasn't us," Jenny repeated. "This didn't happen because of anything we did. That's why we can't stop it." Her voice still had the sound of someone dreaming.

"'Course it wasn't us," Donna said. "Is that what you're worried about? It's not your fault, Jenny. The Doctor knows that."

"You don't understand."

"Donna!" The Doctor's voice drifted back to her, "Keep up!"

"We're here...we're coming!" She shouted back. She took hold of Jenny's arm once again and they made their way slowly forward until a sound behind her make her turn back.

"That sounds like..."

A soft whirring sound so familiar that even when it came as a shock, it was a nice one.

"The TARDIS?" She saw Jack turn to the Doctor in bewilderment. "Did you...?"

The Doctor shook his head.

Donna watched as the familiar blue shape began to come into view. For a mad moment, she wanted to laugh at the thought of its wobbly landing on the uneven ground of the forest.

_The forest._

_The tin of beans._

She called frantically to them.

"It's _us_, Doctor! _It's me and Jenny!_ This is where we came to that night!"

The Doctor ran towards them, beckoning furiously.

"Out of sight! Now!"

"Come on!" Donna tugged Jenny's arm and shouted at her when the girl didn't move.

"Jenny! Come on! We didn't see anyone that night so we're not supposed to see anyone now! We've got to hide!"

How weird to think she'd been_ here_ that evening watching herself.

Jenny wrenched her arm free, glanced briefly at Donna and began to run away from her, her gait unsteady.

"Jenny!" Donna screamed at her. "You can't! You didn't see anyone that night! You didn't see..."

She trailed off.

"Did you see _yourself_?"

The TARDIS door was opening.

Jenny continued to run down the slope and towards the sound of water. Giving her one last, hopeless look, Donna ducked into the nearest line of trees and followed her. She didn't dare look behind her. Seeing herself here seemed so completely wrong she couldn't bear the thought of it.

Keeping Jenny in her line of sight, she made her way downwards until she found the Doctor and Jack.

"She's going to see herself," she said to the Doctor and her voice was trembling so badly, she could hardly say it.

"I know," the Doctor said shortly. His eyes were fixed on Jenny as she made her way to the edge of the water. She felt Jack's hand on her shoulder.

Jenny bent over when she finally stopped, as if trying to catch her breath.

"The other Jenny will be here in a second," Donna said.

"We can't interfere with that," the Doctor replied.

"She's not well."

"I know."

"When why aren't you doing something about it? Why won't you help her?"

"I'm _trying_ to," was all he said.

But even as they watched, Jenny looked to be trying to keep herself upright. There was something about her, something desperate and lonely, something looking for help...

"Sorry." Donna hardly realised what she was saying before she said it, "I can't watch this."

Just as Jenny had done to her, she wrenched herself from Jack's grip and ran.

"Donna, _no_!"

But she kept going, aware of the few seconds she had before the other Jenny would arrive.

Jenny was watching her approach as if she had known that she was coming.

"We have to leave here," she whispered.

"The Doctor thinks it's more important we stay," Donna told her, "it's alright. We'll..."

But as she spoke, Jenny sagged sideways and fell on to the sodden ground.

"Jenny!"

She bent and cradled the girl in her arms. Jenny's eyes were half-closed and her skin was deadly cold.

In the same moment, there was a flurry of running footsteps and Jenny, the _other_ Jenny reached the river. Like her prone counterpart, she stopped for a second, taking a deep breath before looking around her. Donna watched as she realised what and who she was looking at. She stopped dead.

"Donna?" she whispered and the word came out as a gasp.

For a second, nothing moved. Even the water and the movement of the trees seemed silent, as if the whole world was holding its breath.

A voice, _her_ voice sounded over the quietness. Jenny's face, frozen at the sight in front of her, turned in its direction and with a final, helpless glance at them, she turned and made her way back up the slope and back towards the stream where another Donna was rushing towards her, to guide her safely home.


	10. Floodgates

Floodgates

Jack watched as Jenny's form flitted back through the foliage. Beside him, the Doctor stood, poised to move as soon as she was completely out of sight.

"You know, I nearly ran into myself a few times in Pompeii...it's the creepiest feeling, like..." Jack stopped when he saw the Doctor's expression.

"Yeah...maybe it's a story for another time..." He turned back to see Jenny disappear completely into the trees. They left their own shelter and hurried down the slope to where _their_ Donna and Jenny were huddled. The Doctor bent swiftly over to touch Jenny's face.

"What's wrong with her?" Jack asked. The proper question probably would look more like _what's right with her? _

Jack had seen whole worlds destroyed before, starting with his own. Sometimes it seemed to him that in every time he had forged an existence, destruction came sooner or later, whether from internal or external forces. It was a given. You lived in spite of, rather than in fear of. You learned to curse the forces of destruction with the mere fact of your survival.

(Of course that got complicated when your survival really _was_ a given.)

But this was something else. This version of Earth was hard to even breathe in. He couldn't blame Jenny for being unable to take it.

Her eyes opened and he watched her focus on the Doctor. Was it his imagination or did her eyes look different? Jenny had a very direct look most of the time. Her eyes were bright and intense, ready to soak up every piece of information she was given. Now, she was unfocused, almost dream-like. Like a young child in the throes of night terrors of the worst sort.

"Please take me back," she said weakly.

"Send them back," Jack said quietly to the Doctor, indicating Donna as well. He almost laughed at the indignant look on her face. Not that he was usually the type to believe in dreams but these creatures had the concept of nightmares down to a fine art and if someone close to Donna was dreaming about her drowning, then it didn't take a genius to figure that removing her from somewhere surrounded by floodwater might be a smart move.

Except that the genius beside him didn't seem to get that.

He didn't mind admitting it...these creatures really got to him. They were so completely intangible. That sound in the distance. It could be wind. It could be wind created by them. It could be laughter as they flitted in and out of trees, keeping their prey in their line of sight. If he and the Doctor had any form of protection against them, Donna and Jenny didn't and clearly something in Jenny seemed to be extremely vulnerable to them.

It was always harder to fight an enemy that you couldn't clearly define.

If the Doctor didn't appear to fully appreciate the danger they were in, it fell to him to keep them all safe to the best of his ability.

"We can't," the Doctor was saying and his voice was gentle as he addressed Jenny.

"You've got this far. If there's any hope of helping, we need to know what's happened."

"Then we'll go, you and me," Jack said, "let them go back to the TARDIS." He watched as Donna stiffened, as if preparing to resist but she said nothing, maybe torn between wanting to stay and wanting to help Jenny. She looked troubled.

"We're getting nearer, aren't we?" the Doctor asked.

Jenny nodded dully.

"How would she know?" Donna asked before Jack had a chance to.

The Doctor didn't reply. He was holding the sonic screwdriver out in front of him and staring straight ahead as if he could see something that they couldn't.

"Can you walk?" he asked Jenny.

"She can't stand!" Donna said tartly.

"She's got to!"

Donna opened her mouth, presumably to give him an earful but Jack found himself shaking his head at her. Many, many prior experiences had taught him that when the Doctor acted out of character, it really was better just to go with it.

They made their way carefully along the edge of the river. From time to time, Jack could see the others reacting in the same way to the strange sounds around them just as much as he was. It was almost as if the whole forest and everything in it was alive. Well, of course it was. It was a forest. But it wouldn't have surprised him to see evidence that everything in it, plants, trees and skies were somehow in league with the creatures who controlled it.

"Doctor, is there any point in asking why we're trying to find out what happened here, _here_? Wouldn't it easier just to go back and see what's in store for us?"

"Because it's not."

"What?"

"I told you. Something happens in our future and creates this." He waved an arm around them. "But it's not meant to happen. It's caused a wound in time, if you like. There's got to be evidence of it around here and we've got to find it quickly. We've been brought here for a reason."

"Yeah. To kill us slowly."

"Jack, they're asking for our help, albeit for their own self-preservation."

"Yeah, because they're usually so helpful to us, stealing children and all. Only this time _we_ seem to be the Chosen Ones."

"Exactly." The Doctor smiled slightly, as if Jack had given the right answer to an important question.

"That's not good, Doctor."

"It's all we've got at the moment. The TARDIS couldn't have gotten here without their help. We're in...well, it's not quite a clear timeline. It's muddied and shadowed. No one should ever have to time travel on a shaky path like this one. It's hard to even think about it." He shook his head slightly as if trying to clear it of something.

Jack stared at the Doctor.

"Is that what's affecting Jenny?"

But the Doctor shook his head. Jack looked around in frustration.

"I mightn't be able to see these timelines but let's not forget that in our present, these creatures are destroying the world."

"Something else is about to do that. And..." He held out a hand to stop Jack walking as the sound of rushing water began to get clearer and clearer. "I think we've found it."

All of a sudden, they had reached the top of the hill and it really was sudden...the sort of the height that startles a climber into realising that there really is a sheer drop waiting for them only feet away.

"Careful," the Doctor said as Jack walked forward. "The ground's quite unsteady."

They approached the edge together and looked down.

"It's like a sea," Donna said in complete bewilderment.

"Floodwaters," Jack said, moving closer to her, "and some sort of crater."

"But there's waves and rocks!"

"That's not rocks," the Doctor said, squinting and shielding his eyes from a sudden glow of white sunlight.

Jack knelt down to try and see better. From this distance, the object certainly looked like a cluster of rocks, especially with the way the waves seemed to crash and break around it, as if launching a never-ending attack. But no...now that he looked...was that metal?

"It's a spaceship!" He and the Doctor exclaimed the words in unison.

"A crashed spaceship." Jack almost felt dizzy. "Could it cause this much damage?"

The Doctor shrugged. "From far enough away, it could. Especially if it crashed through a time portal."

"Why don't you know?" Jenny's voice behind them sounded cracked, as if she hadn't used it in a very long time.

"What?" Jack turned around to her.

"You _know _what it is."

"Tell me what you mean," he said, keeping his voice as gentle as he could. There was definitely something seriously wrong with Jenny.

"I didn't do it."

"You keep saying that," Donna said to her, "_I didn't do it. I didn't do anything._ What is it you think we're accusing you of?"

Jenny straightened and took a deep breath. She glanced at the spaceship and then looked at the Doctor. There was a strange smile on her face, an expression of triumph, of something proved right. Jack looked at the Doctor in bewilderment.

The Doctor had that look in his face, the sad look of someone lost, as he stared back at his daughter as if she was a completely unknown entity.

And in the second that she sprang forwards, and with the grace of youth and the eyes of someone, something ancient, locked her arms around Donna and pulled her downwards, Jack realised that she was.

...................................................................

Two Days Later

"_This is how it happens._

_There's a woman called Donna who has left this comfortable life on planet Earth and given it all up to travel with you. There's a man called Jack who has given up all his travels and adventures to live on Earth and protect it from harm because he thought you'd like him to._

_And one day the three of you travel together and you find me and we travel together and we laugh at the fact that I can time travel, that I travelled time and space to find you and eventually that we found each other. We laugh at my mistakes, the fact that I could hardly control that rocket ship, the fact that I often landed worlds away from where I wanted to be._

_You know what a time portal looks like. Mostly it's invisible to anyone else, even if they crash into it, or fall through it. You also know that a ship that travels in time is far more vulnerable to a time portal than one that doesn't. The energies recognise one another, reach out to each other._

_I didn't know that._

_And you probably know what happens when a rocket ship, with all that uncontrollable energy and a complete novice inside, crashes into a time portal over the planet Earth and falls through it. How the pilot might have been lucky enough to get into the escape pod so that she falls in one direction, away from the wreckage of the ship. She lands centuries into the future where the Time Agency is waiting for her and that's ok because she can go on and look for you._

_You never asked me what happened to the rocket ship._

_I couldn't have told you anyway. I didn't know._

_I didn't know that the time energy inside the ship would react with what was going on outside of it. I didn't know that the force in which it would land on Earth would be enough to destroy almost the entire planet._

_I didn't know that it would land in the 21__st__ century._

_I didn't know that its timelines would become distorted and twisted because it was never meant to happen._

_This is all I do know:_

_How to fight and how to die._

_I was never meant to be born._

_You know that."_


	11. Split Seconds

_For anyone still reading...real life got in the way, I'm afraid, hence the very long break and I'm very sorry. Updates will be regular from now on, I promise! _

_Happy New Year!_

* * *

"_I was never meant to be born. You know that."_

"What?" The Doctor stared at her incredulously.

Jenny shrugged, as if none of it was any of her concern. Only her eyes betrayed her with the merest hint of unusual brightness. She was still clutching Donna's purple jacket.

"You said it yourself," the Doctor told her, "you didn't know. You didn't know the damage that the rocket ship could do. You didn't know that piloting it by yourself was a huge risk. And I never asked you properly what happened to it."

"A minute ago, you said this was all our fault!"

The Doctor rubbed his forehead.

"What I said was that _some_ people..." He inclined his head to take Jack as well as Jenny into his gaze, "have forgotten the importance of not interfering with time. Jack and Ianto...swanning off wherever and whenever they like! You! Pressing random buttons on time travelling devices at a vulnerable time. They were just waiting for you to do something like that. It's a miracle you didn't become one of their Chosen Ones. Mind you...they probably knew you'd have absolutely no sense...."

"I thought I could go back and put it right!"

"You thought! You thought but you didn't know! You can't manipulate time! You can't bend it to your will! You can't interfere when you don't know what you're interfering with!"

"That's not always easy," Jack said, "and anyway, look who's talking!"

"It's different for me. I see what I'm doing. I know..."

"I know what I'm doing!"

"Do you? Cardiff 2007? You knew what you were doing?"

As if the question had come with a weight attached, Jack sank down on to the couch. Donna's couch. He tried not to look at Jenny and the jacket she was holding. The vivid purple made him see over and over...Donna falling...a flash of purple and a sudden silence that lasted for what felt like hours but could only have been seconds...

* * *

...seconds in which Donna was drowning.

Whatever else she had hurt on the fall downwards, and maybe she was lucky that she was too cold to feel any pain, she was drowning. At first she'd thought it would be instant. In the time old tradition of split seconds seeming like so much longer, she'd had a moment to register what was happening and that she couldn't possibly survive it. There had been a second to think of her mother and a brief, searing pain which thankfully had been eradicated by shock and cold and a frantic struggle for survival.

She was not a good swimmer but she had kicked and moved and tried her best to breathe when she could get her head above the waves. Her clothes were heavy and there was no keeping herself afloat. In desperation she had wriggled out of her jacket and thrashed about, hoping that movement would help but every second was dragging her further downwards...

...until her hand brushed something solid. She pressed against it, trying to feel for something she could cling to. It was stone, she was almost sure of that, and pretty smooth, by the feel of it. Still she pressed her hands to it, desperate to keep it in her line of sight. And then, she had felt it; perhaps a climbing plant, perhaps part of a tree, something wooden. Whatever it was, it was solid enough and she could hold on to it.

But a brief reprieve was probably all it was. Sooner or later, the numbness of hands would make her pull too hard or let go altogether. Or the water would rise. Or the waves would strengthen as she tired and pull her away.

She was very cold.

Around her was wind and grey and that other sound they'd heard the whole way through the forest...not quite laughter, not quite children, but something similar that wouldn't ordinarily give anyone the chills.

She clung on...and waited.

* * *

...seconds in which a gasp had brought Jenny back into her body with a wrench that was both painful and profoundly comforting, slightly like being woken from the worst nightmare ever.

And then the nightmare started again in full force as she realised that she was surrounded by water. Pulling herself upright, she stared around in confusion. Only a moment ago, she had been in Torchwood with her father and Jack. They'd been talking about...time or something. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. She'd wandered off...no. She'd picked up an object...an object that had tingled in her hands...

She was lying on metal. On something large and smooth and only by lying completely still, was there any chance of not slipping off into the waves that rushed around it. Very slowly, she pushed against her hands, attempting to pull herself into an upright position and nearly toppled sideways at the sight of the creature beside her.

It was human sized, maybe slightly bigger, with skin that looked like parchment, wings that quivered with some unimaginable power and eyes that seemed to look into rather than at her.

"You are reunited with your weapon" it announced calmly.

"Weapon? It's not..." Jenny looked down at the metal underneath her hands and back at the creature forgetting, in her confusion, to be intimidated by it.

"You used this weapon to destroy our world," the creature replied.

"I don't know what it is!" Jenny leaned over as far as she dared, trying to see underneath the surface of the water. The object was large, that was obvious, and something about the shape...and was that a door at the side? Even submerged, she felt a spark of energy run through it, as if her glance had strengthened it.

"It's my spaceship," she said, feeling as if her vital organs had all just stopped at once.

The creature regarded her silently.

"It's dying and I'm going to die with it," Jenny said, marvelling inwardly at her dull tone of voice.

But the creature turned in a dismissive gesture as if her words had annoyed it.

"What did you do to me?" She asked. "You took me away...It's like...I wasn't in my body."

"You were one of us," the creature said, "but you didn't fit. You are incomplete."

"And I'm grateful for that," Jenny muttered. She looked around her again.

"Where's my father and Donna? You better not have hurt them. If this is my fault, it has nothing to do with them. It's me you're punishing!"

"You have already been punished," it replied and suddenly its voice seemed to be the voice of thousands, rather than one.

"I can help," she said desperately, "I can put this right. Honestly. Just tell me where my father is, and Donna. We can sort this out and save your world. It's our world too. We wouldn't want to see it destroyed!"

"You have been punished," the creature repeated and its gaze seemed to force her to look it in the eyes and ask the question.

"How?"

"We severed the link."

"What link?"

"Parent and child," the creature said, "that link is severed, as cleanly as it is, when a human child is revealed to be one of us. Such an easy link to break for a connection so precious to you."

"Parent? You mean...my father? What have you done to him? None of this is his fault!"

"No," the eyes fixed solidly on hers, holding her still as effectively as if it was pinning her to the metal on which she lay. "It is yours. And therefore you can die here or live and face the person who was once your parent. It is of no consequence to us."

"What good is it to you if you harm my father? He's the one that can fix this. You want your world back, don't you?"

"And he will fix it. He has not been harmed."

"But you said..."

As if her words were thoroughly irritating it, the creature waved an arm to Jenny's right. She stared for a moment, at water rushing and dashing against a large expanse of rock and grassy ledges. Had something moved at the top? She squinted, placed a hand over her eyes to block out the sunlight...

"It's Jack!" She could make out his coat and a frenetic movement, as if he was fighting. But no, he was holding...she felt her body tighten as if every breath was being forced out of her.

He was holding her father back from jumping off the ledge.

Jenny looked at the water again. The churning waves. The flash of purple.

From somewhere in her head, she barely registered that she was sobbing as she lunged for the creature.

"Donna had nothing to do with this! You get her back!"

"No, but you had." Suddenly the creature's voice was louder than before with an echo that hurt her head.

"That won't make my father stop loving me," Jenny said, "please, bring her back. It's me you want." She backed up, realising that her hands were holding the creature's wrists. It was a curious sensation, as if she were clinging to parchment.

"Stay here and face him, then," was the only reply. The creature stood and even though a moment ago, it had seemed the height as Jenny, suddenly it loomed over her. Then it was gone, almost as if a ferocious wind blew it backwards. In seconds it had reached the top of the cliff where she could still see the frantically moving figures of the Doctor and Jack. In what looked like an embrace, it seemed to fold Jack up in its gnarled arms and then they vanished from sight, leaving the Doctor standing stock still, as if he might never move again.


	12. Two Wrongs

"What are you doing?" the Doctor shouted over the wind as he struggled to escape from Jack's grip.

"I'll do it!" Jack shouted back. Wasn't it obvious? Of the two of them, he could survive the fall without having to regenerate and they could really do without any added complications.

"Donna's drowning down there!" He shouted into the Doctor's face. "I'll find her, I promise!" He let go of the Doctor's arms and ran forward, bracing himself for the onslaught of air as his feet left the surface.

Instead, there was nothing, just a muffled sound and a sense of smothering. He drew back and realised that the Doctor was beside him.

"I told you I'd do it!"

"Never mind that. We can't pass!" The Doctor reached his arms into the space immediately in front of them, feeling around.

"Some sort of barrier?"

"It can't go on forever!" The Doctor broke into a job as he moved along the cliff edge.

"It can!" Jack stopped him roughly. "Doctor, they can do anything! We need to do even more than that! Right now! I know you don't want to think weapons but..."

"There is something I can do."

"What?"

The Doctor's face was ashen as he pointed over the cliff edge.

"The spaceship. It's a mistake and I'm good at fixing those sorts of mistakes. A bit of tweaking and it was never here."

"And the catch?"

"Neither is Jenny. Literally. I banish her ship. I banish her out of existence. Forever." The Doctor took a deep, ragged breath. "Meanwhile, Donna's drowning down there. And the human race is dying."

Jack said nothing. There was absolutely nothing to say.

The Doctor turned away from Jack, holding the screwdriver in his hands, turning it over and over as if an answer might be written somewhere on its surface. He took a deep breath, glanced at Jack for a moment then aimed it in the directed of the sunken space ship.

"Doctor. Donna would never forgive you. She wouldn't want..."

"She's my friend!"

"Jenny is your flesh and blood! Seriously, Doctor, we'll find another way." Even as he said it, Jack as if the weight of the world was crashing down on him. The human race was at stake and he could see it reflected in the Doctor's eyes.

"It's not fair!" He heard himself shout without any idea of forming the words. "You can't be expected to make this sort of sacrifice!"

"That's what you've never understood, Jack." The Doctor's eyes were hard to look at.

"What? That we have to make sacrifices? Believe me, Doc..."

"No. That there's always another way."

The Doctor turned around, aimed the screwdriver at the TARDIS and closed his eyes.

"Doctor! What are you..."

Jack looked all around, as if somehow inspiration might be lurking behind a tree somewhere. The wind was picking up and somehow he fancied that the laughter was still there behind it all...childlike, wispy...

"Come and face us!" His skin crawled at the prospect.

A shape danced in front of them, a shadow and then more than a shadow. There was just a second to register that his command had been obeyed and then the world went black...

...a rush of air...

...and he was slammed back to Cardiff with a jolt that was concrete and cars and voices all at once.

* * *

"No!" He spun around, as if the cold water world of the forest might be lurking somewhere behind him

"Take me back!" He jammed his fingers toward his wrist device, trying to keep the images in his mind, only to realise that the Doctor still had it. People stared at him as they passed, increasing their steps as if to get as far away from the crazy man shouting at nothing as they possibly could.

Jack stared around him. At least they'd had a good grace to send him back to Cardiff and in what looked like, his own time. Surely there would be something, anything in the hub that might sort this mess out. He set off at a gallop and stopped dead.

Walking ahead of him was _himself_. And Ianto.

"Not quite my own time," he muttered.

He knew at once why he had been sent back to 2007. He and Ianto had been time-travelling. Clearly something they'd done...and he had a good idea what...was enough to banish him back to them.

But nothing bad had happened that evening. They'd saved that child, or whatever it was...he was no longer sure. They'd eaten in a restaurant and joked about bringing about the end of the world. Or had they? Suddenly the evening seemed hazy in his mind. He couldn't remember returning to their own time, to the hub.

Only they must have had. They'd had a lot to drink, that was it. He frowned, momentarily distracted, then ducked into a doorway. He'd wait until they heard the child cry out and disappeared into the alley and he'd try to figure this thing out...

...from the back, they made a smart couple.

And there it was. The thin cry. He watched himself stop and listen and Ianto's lips move as spoke. It was hard to understand why the Doctor was so repelled by the idea of running into himself...well, apart from the obvious dangers. Jack found it fascinating.

They had gone into the alleyway. He started to follow and stopped. Once around the corner, there would be nowhere to hide.

"Come on Doctor...tell me what to do," he muttered.

After a few minutes, he heard muffled voices and footsteps. He pressed himself back into a doorway.

A small girl ran out, the girl from the wall.

She spotted him straight away and stopped to regard him, smiling slightly, the smile telling Jack that this really was not and had never been, a child.

"What do you want?" he asked roughly.

Now, the second child had joined him and they both stared at him silently. Jack turned and walked away, aware that he and Ianto could be in close pursuit.

They followed him.

After the next corner, he faced them again.

"What do you want?"

"You said you wanted us to face you," the first one replied calmly.

"Why here?"

"This is where we found you. We were searching for the time-travellers who destroyed our world. You time-travelled and we found you. You lifted me from the wall and I had your imprint. We've met many, many times before and after that moment."

The words sent a chill through Jack.

"Why here?" he repeated.

Now the two children spoke to him in one voice.

"We told you. We will meet again and again. Your fate is linked with ours. Therefore, you couldn't perish with your friends."

"What do you mean, perish? The Doctor is putting it right if you'll give him a chance!"

"He has put it right. He destroyed his time machine."

"He what?"

"The explosion of time energy will restore to the world to how it was."

"He couldn't..." Jack stared at the two impassive faces, feeling as if his insides were melting into nothing.

"If that's true...if he's really done that, you can bring them back here. You owe him!"

"We owe him nothing. Every ounce of that energy, destroyed or whole, injures us."

"Really? So if I'm that important to you, I order you to bring them back right now! I can destroy you too."

"You have no power over us."

As they spoke, the two children raised their hands. A shower of hailstorms began to fall around them.

"Cute," Jack said flatly.

The hailstones began to turn to ice. Big blocks of ice. From somewhere nearby, there was a scream and a screech of brakes. Under his feet, Jack felt ice begin to form. The temperature was dropping rapidly.

He pulled the nearest child in close to him and with the other hand, pointed his gun directly at her head.

"Don't think I won't," he said quietly and looked directly into her eyes...

...and nearly screamed as he dropped her.

The face staring back at him was Estelle's.

"I'll kill you," he said, recovering himself and trying not to meet her eyes. "I don't care if you can't be killed, I'll find a way."

Now they were changing again. The two children resumed their proper forms, the graceful, grotesque forms of fairies.

Ice was beginning to form on nearby windows.

"Walk away," one of them said, "turn and walk away from here. You'll be returned to your own time. Life will continue. The ice will melt."

"And my frends?"

"Forget them."

There were sounds of panic from the streets now. The traffic appeared to be at a standstill and people were shouting. A sheet of ice now covered the whole pavement they stood on.

"Ok." Jack took a deep breath. "I'm going. Melt the ice."

They stared back, as if daring him. If anything, the air was getting colder. The hailstones were beginning to resemble small rocks.

He walked away from them and out on to the street. People were frantically trying to get in and out of cars but the doors seemed to be frozen and stuck. They slithered and slipped on the ice as they tugged at door handles. Others struggled on the pavement, trying frantically to find a grip, dodge the falling ice and keep themselves upright. He stayed close to the wall as he moved forwards, searching the white coloured buildings around him. Cardiff was almost unrecognisable.

But the people he was looking for weren't. Standing at the door of the restaurant, they looked just as worried as he remembered.

"Jack! Ianto!" he shouted and set off towards them at a shaky sprint.

They turned in one movement. Their eyes met his.

The sky began to darken rapidly apart from a flash of lightening that, for a moment, seemed to split the whole world in two.


	13. Still Waters

Jack and Ianto seemed to stare at him for an eternity. It would have been quite funny...if the world wasn't falling apart at the same time.

"This is worse than big, dark birds, I take it?" Ianto muttered.

"_What the hell_ are you doing?" his other self shouted.

"Yeah, I know, I know, this is really bad." Jack waved a dismissive hand in front of them wondering at what point his other self would beat the crap out of him.

"_Bad?_ Look at the sky! Any minute now..."

"Yeah...it's ok. Really. The Doctor will sort it."

"You can't tell the Doctor that we..."

"Oh you think he won't know?"

"Well this is your doing, not ours..." Jack, the _other _Jack stopped dead and stared at him. "I mean...mine. What the hell am I doing?!" This question was addressed to Ianto.

"Having an argument with yourself." Ianto shrugged. "We all do it from time to time. Normally, we can't actually see ourselves in front of us when we do it but..."

"Retcon yourselves, ok?" Jack stepped closer to them and looked desperately around. "No, that won't work. Just get away from here. I don't think you'll really remember...just... leave. Now."

His other self turned away and then looked back.

"Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Let's never do this again, ok?"

"Whatever. Tell you what..."

But even as he spoke, his other self and Ianto faded abruptly out of sight.

"Now!" He shouted into the empty air, taking no notice of anyone else around. "Are you happy now? Can you fix this?"

The fairies were gone. There was no reply.

* * *

Donna closed her eyes. She knew she was still clinging to the wood because she hadn't drowned. But apart from that, her body felt frozen...and strangely calm. She couldn't feel the cold. She couldn't feel the effort that staying alive was taking. She was sleepy and somewhere she knew that giving into that would be fatal. But it was very hard to resist.

Had she heard her name being called?

She allowed herself to drift, letting the image of home float through her mind. Her parents downstairs...Granddad out on the hill, searching the skies...in a minute, her father would call her...everything normal...everything so normal that she'd never realise how precious it was until it was gone...those days when Dad was still alive...and the Doctor...

Her eyes snapped open.

Was the Doctor looking for her? Was he ok?

Thinking about the Doctor gave her something to focus on, some reason to stay awake. Just as he had in the days after Dad died.

"_Donna!"_

There it was again.

She tried to call back but her voice couldn't compete with the wind around her. Besides that, her words sounded slurred and indistinct.

"_Donna!"_

Hearing his voice was comforting. She let her eyes to close again, feeling the word tip gently into her mind, like a lullaby....

...no! She couldn't fall asleep. She lifted her head slightly, aware that she was shivering again. Was her imagination or was there a slight, a very slight warmth in the water around her hands? It was as if whatever she was clinging to was warming up. She shifted her hands around, aware of an ache in her shoulder. She was feeling her body again.

More than that. She twisted in the direction of her aching shoulder. She could see it!

The water was receding!

Fully awake now, she watched the sway of water against her body...at her chest and then downwards. It was slow but it was definitely moving. In a moment, she could be able to see her hands and what it was that she was holding on to.

* * *

The Doctor had almost made it back to the shore. It had taken what seemed like every ounce of his strength to break through the barrier. The weak spot had been directly in front of the line of Jenny's spaceship, as if they had known he would need access to it, yet still wanted to make it difficult.

With a final, enormous effort, he pulled himself free of the waves and collapsed onto the stones, gasping for breath. Above him, the sky was darkening quickly. Rain and wind obscured the view and for a second, he was motionless where he lay. Then in one movement, he was upright, turning to the right and then the left.

"Donna!" he shouted into the storm.

Nothing. He rubbed his eyes as if trying to dry them to sharpen his vision but every inch of him was drenched.

"Donna!"

He turned back towards the churning waves.

"Father!"

He stopped still and turned around. Across the stones, Jenny was making her way towards him. She was drenched to the skin and horribly pale. Water ran down her face, tears or rain.

Jenny, supposedly his flesh and blood. Literally. Far too literally. Jenny, who listened to no one. Who hadn't listened to him. Hadn't confided what she'd seen. Jenny, who had crashed a powerful spaceship on to Earth and hadn't even thought it might be important enough to mention. Every instant of her life so far had been thoughtless, dangerous and downright disastrous.

He watched her approach and gaze up into his face. She said nothing and neither did he.

Jenny, who had allowed her actions to bring them all to this. She was irresponsible. She was completely ignorant. She was dangerous...nothing but a soldier in a world that she wasn't supposed to be in.

He put his arms around her and held her.

"Father..." Her voice was muffled. She tried to draw back, to look up at him and speak.

"Shh.." He held her close and pointed the screwdriver at the spaceship. Beside him, one of the fairies stood watching and he knew that this had been the one who had inhabited Jenny's body and been so weakened by it.

"You thought she was a child, didn't you?" he asked.

The creature regarded him silently.

"In a way, she was," he continued, "none of this is really her fault. It's mine, if anyone's. She shouldn't have to pay for it. With your energy and mine, we could put this right without causing harm to anyone."

"You will all pay for it," the creature breathed, "you are condemned to wander this world forever and feel the effects of its damage. You will compensate for our injuries."

"Yeah." The Doctor raised the screwdriver.

"It was worth asking."

Without the TARDIS, it was harder to find the vulnerable points of the energy around the spaceship, the point in which Time had seeped into it and around it; the crash and its subsequent cracks and ripples. He shut his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked against him.

"Don't think about it."

He aimed the screwdriver and pressed the button.

* * *

The Doctor was running. The water was fast receding and he knew it wouldn't be long before Time began to repair itself. London of 3009 would start to reappear. He stopped and lifted his head, searching his mind for the hum that was as familiar to him as the workings of his physical self.

200 yards to the left.

The ground was sodden. He knew that while the recovery of this place and time would be instant, under the surface, it would take longer. The weather would be wildly unsettled. The cold and rain would seep into everything, including the people. You could pretend that something hadn't happened but reality would tick away underneath and churn up all that was beyond the surface. It was one of the reasons humans believed in ghosts. It was one of the reasons fairies existed.

Finally he reached it. He took a deep breath, as if drinking in something that he had been badly deprived of for a long time.

The TARDIS stood in front of him standing guard over the still form of Donna curled up in its shadow.

He reached her in two steps.

"Donna!" Afraid to move her too much before her body had had a chance to get warm, he touched her shoulder and leaned over her.

"Donna! Come on, you're safe now. I'm here."

"What? I'm getting up...in a minute..." Her voice sounded sluggish and very, very tired.

"It's ok." He took off his coat and placed it over her, "we're all ok."

Her eyes opened slowly and she gazed at him. Her eyes looked unfocused.

"Dad?"

"No, Donna. It's me...the Doctor. I came to find you."

She smiled at him...vaguely...as if she saw him from a very great distance.

"Knew you'd come," she whispered.


	14. At odds

The simultaneous feel of dry land underneath her and the sight of the Doctor's face over her were two of the most beautiful things Donna felt she'd ever experienced. Too exhausted to move, she tried to smile at him.

"We're all ok," he said softly. But his eyes were very sad. Donna had come to trust the Doctor's eyes far more than his voice to reveal what he was really communicating.

"I was holding..." She tried to talk slowly in order to make her voice sound clearer, "the TARDIS. It was the TARDIS all along."

"I know," he replied briskly, sitting beside her. "I sent it to you."

"What?"

"I sent it to you. Two birds with one stone! The fairies needed to think I destroyed it. You needed something to keep you afloat. You're a genius, Donna!"

"Am I?"

"You wouldn't let me erase the Timelord genetics in your body, remember? That was how I sent the TARDIS to you. Stubborn old girl, she wouldn't go to just anyone!" He smiled fondly at his ship.

"Jenny and Jack?" Donna murmured.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, as if turning things over in his mind.

"Jack was banished somewhere. Seems to me in some warped way, the fairies want him safe. He won't like that. They got him out of here and we have to follow. Quickly."

"Jenny?"

"Donna...I need to get you into the TARDIS. Slowly. It's not good for you to move too much just yet but we can't stay here. I'll help you sit up and then..."

"Doctor. Where's Jenny?"

"She's safe. Come on, Donna. I've made enemies here. Got to see if the TARDIS can get us away."

Donna struggled to a sitting position, gasping at the pain in her shoulder.

"That could be dislocated," the Doctor said, "careful now. I can fix it."

"Don't you dare. Not without a good dose of..._something_."

"We'll go for good old fashioned 20th century medicine...if we can get back there."

"Very reassuring." Donna gritted her teeth and focused on moving towards the TARDIS door, step by step.

* * *

The ice melted in the instant that the sky cracked and now it was getting darker by the second. Whatever he had done was really bad, Jack knew that, but his vague compulsion to cancel out one wrong-doing with another had seemed the only option. And maybe in some weird way it had worked. ..

...if only the sky didn't keep darkening the way it was.

He would have sold his soul to know if Ianto was safe back in 2009.

He turned around without much idea of what to do next and nearly crashed into Jenny.

She was standing in front of him, shaking and drenched.

"Jenny...what are you doing here?"

"Father..." Jenny's teeth were chattering so much she could hardly speak, "he was holding me and he...he attacked one of the fairies with his screwdriver. She fell down into my spaceship and they both disappeared. He pushed this into my hand and I ended up here." She held up his Vortex Manipulator.

"That was you he was supposed to vanish. I knew he had a plan! The time energy from the fairy was enough to banish the ship."

"But it's still happening." Jenny pointed to the sky.

"No...that was me. I did some attacking of my own. Come on." He took her hand and looked around at the strengthening waves below the pier. "We can't get out of here until the Doctor gets back and puts this right."

"If he can get back."

"He will. I'm sure of it."

He wished he could feel as convinced as he sounded.

* * *

"You are not undressing me!"

"Donna...we have to get you warm. I'm helping you!"

"Whatever. You're not doing it."

The Doctor sighed and placed dry clothes beside her.

"Whatever you say. When you're in total agony from trying to undress by yourself, just remember I offered!"

"Fine. Turn around."

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS controls.

"For crying out loud!" He sounded furious as he glanced into a screen.

"What?"

"Jack. He's managed to create a crack in time and space in Cardiff. In 2007. As if they really need another Rift there and as if things aren't bad enough already!"

"Why 2007?"

"Oh, probably reasons best known to Jack. Maybe he felt we hadn't enough to worry about!"

"Can you fix it?"

"Can I fix it, get us out of here without being followed, tend to you and manoeuvre us through a Rift in time getting bigger by the minute?" The Doctor stared downwards, expressionless.

"'Course you can," Donna murmured in what she hoped was an encouraging voice.

"'Course I can," he muttered back.

The TARDIS hummed, a hum that rapidly became more of a buzz. It didn't sound right and the Doctor kept his hand pressed firmly on the controls. In a strange sort of way, it looked as if they were at odds with each other. Donna watched, fascinated at the interplay between the Doctor and his ship. There were no words, no body language, but the air was heavy with displeasure and something forceful, bitter.

"Are we moving?" she asked.

"Sort of."

Donna pushed herself upright, feeling almost suffocated by the air around her. The TARDIS had never made her feel like this before, as if she wanted to run outside.

"You're upsetting her," she told the Doctor.

"I know," he said quietly.

"Well..." She got up unsteadily, "bloody stop then! She knows what she's doing!"

"Sit down, Donna."

"Not until you tell me why she's angry with you."

The Doctor sighed.

"She wants me safe."

"What? _I_ want you safe! What's happening?"

"It's 2007. Whatever Jack's up to. She doesn't want to go there because it's too much. On top of all this, too much messing with time. It's not good for her and that makes it twice as bad for me. But we can't stay here. Those creatures are capable of draining ever ounce of energy from the TARDIS."

"Well, tell her... or whatever your equivalent of _telling her_ is...we can't survive here. If they disable the TARDIS, none of us survive."

"She's weak and confused," the Doctor said and his face was so pale, he could almost have been talking about himself. As he stepped sideways to reach for a lever, his movement was unsteady.

"Doctor...they're doing something now. Can't you feel it? They're attacking you both!"

"Nah, we'll get away first." He slammed his hands back on to the main controls. The TARDIS lurched and shook. Donna made her way slowly towards him as an idea started to take root in her mind.

"Doctor, just stop for a minute. I have an idea." She reached for a drawer. "Look! You told me these would work if something bad happened, that there was one for each of us. Let's give it a try, right?"

"We can't! If I can just get us back to Cardiff for 1869..."

"_What?!"_

"They built a tower! Can you believe it? A patch in the fabric of reality...best left alone...but oh no! Torchwood knows best! They build a tower so they can tear it apart even more!"

"Doctor, please. You're not making sense." Donna reached his side and put her hand on his, trying desperately to move it away from the controls. "Listen to me."

"No time for chit chat, Rose."

"Fine!" Ignoring her panic, Donna reached into the drawer. Beside her, the Doctor was suddenly quiet, almost as if deflated. His hands ceased their frantic hold on the buttons and merely rested there. The TARDIS was silent, as if holding her breath.

Donna tried again and managed eased his hands from the controls.

"Here, sit down before you fall down."

Trying to ignore her own aches, she manoeuvred him into a sitting position.

"What are you going to do?" He asked quietly and without much interest, as if she was merely showing him a trick that might or might not be interesting.

"Let's hope that sometimes Torchwood does know best, Doctor, ok?"


	15. Under Attack

There was one for each of them. Donna thumbed through the stack of CD-like devices in her hand, glanced at the Doctor when she reached "Rose" and smiled slightly at her own name. There was none for Jenny but when she thought about it, how could there be?

Just as she hoped, there was one for Jack.

She turned to the Doctor.

"If Jack was here with you, and something terrible happened, you'd send him away, wouldn't you? You'd send him back to Torchwood and the TARDIS would take him because she knows how important it is to you that..."

Her voice wavered slightly as she registered the lack of response on his face.

"Not that Jack would go if he had anything to do with it," she continued, leaning over him, "none of us would."

The Doctor didn't reply. His face was a ghastly shade of grey and from the look in his eyes, it was obvious that he was just about managing to stay conscious. She inserted the disk where he had shown her and sat on the floor beside him to wait.

* * *

Jack and Jenny ran through the deserted street, trying to escape from what felt like a hurricane around them. It was troubling, Jack thought, that there were no people around. At first, he assumed that they had run, gone to find shelter, but the amount of ground that he and Jenny had covered had revealed...no one. That was bad.

"Let's stop here," Jenny shouted, and he was see by the way she shook, that she couldn't run much further, not that she'd ever admit it, "the wall can shelter us."

"Just a bit further, ok?"

He put an arm around her and half dragged her into the nearest building, which turned out to be a large department store. Directing her away from the high glass displays, they came to rest at a staircase in the middle of the floor.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She nodded, and he saw the effort she made to conceal how breathless she was.

"There's nothing we can do, is there? I'm..." She stopped and started again, "I'm, well, _related_ to the Doctor but I can't think of anything. All I can think is directions...run, retreat...the short-term, you know."

"Same here," Jack admitted, "I tend to switch off when the Doctor starts ranting about Time rules and regulations. Consequently, here we are!"

"No fairies though. Do you think you killed them?"

"No. It's not easy to do that. At best, I confused them."

"Better than nothing."

Jenny rested her head atop her hands and then into them and Jack realised that she was crying. He took a step towards her but she quickly straightened up and stood, fully composed. It was funny, he thought, how at times, you saw something so young in her. That gesture of pulling away from comfort made him think of nothing else but a child trying to conceal that a fall had frightened or hurt them.

"Did you hear something?" she asked suddenly.

"No, what?"

"Sounded like the TARDIS."

"I don't think so." Jack ran to the door and leapt back as the force of the wind swung it back violently towards him, "we're in 2007. There's no reason they'd think to find us here even if they managed to..."

He stopped and checked his Vortex Manipulator.

"Jenny, it _is _the TARDIS! It's somewhere around here!"

She ran up to him and he showed her the light flashing on the wrist device as he pressed down on it.

"How does that work? I thought he disabled it."

"He's always disabling it! The more he disables it, the more I learn how to hook it up again! I lost him once before and everything I've done to this thing since then has been in the name of never letting him out of my sight again."

He drew her against him and pressed the button one last time. There was a long, smooth sound and a blinding light. He thought Jenny called out, muffled against his coat, and then they were gone.

* * *

When the light faded, they were on the TARDIS and while a journey in the TARDIS was never exactly _comfortable_, this was way beyond anything he had ever experienced. The ship was rocking violently from side by side, a high-pitched sound emitting from the controls. Clinging to them, he made his way around to the other side and stopped at the sight in front of him.

Donna was crouched beside the Doctor, holding onto him as if for dear life.

"Donna! Jenny, Donna's here!"

"Donna!"

Jenny skidded to a halt somewhere to his left.

"What's wrong with them?"

Donna was clutching the Doctor but even though her eyes were open and her grip looked fierce, she had not responded to their voices. The Doctor looked unconscious. Jack knelt down beside them.

"Donna?" He waved his hand in front of her and eventually she moved to feebly swat it away.

"Donna, it's me. Jenny's here too. What's wrong?"

"Don't know." Donna's voice sounded exhausted.

"The TARDIS sounds like she's screaming for help," Jenny said.

Jack stood up and ran to the nearest screen. There was nothing on it but as he bent closer, he could hear other sounds amidst the peel from the TARDIS. Something light, wispy...like childrens' laughter.

"We're being attacked," he said, returning to the Doctor and Donna, "no use in asking where the weapons are kept, I guess."

"I got you here," Donna said suddenly, as if she was only just becoming aware of their presence. She held up something lying beside her and Jack could see that it was a cluster of disks.

"You used mine?"

"Thought it would get us to Torchwood. I didn't think it could find you along the way as well." She managed a small smile. "Added bonus."

"You said it!" He reached for the nearest screen and set the co-ordinates.

"Ianto!" He crossed his fingers tightly as he called, "Ianto! If you can hear me, those pockets of Rift energy we confined last week... send them to me, ok?" He turned back to Donna. "If we can give the TARDIS a bit of a boost, it might get us far enough away from them to...regroup."

"Doctor?" Donna reached for the Doctor and Jack saw her wince slightly as she moved. She shook his arm.

"He was talking before!"

"Whatever they're doing is affecting you both," Jack said, trying to sound as if he knew what he was talking about.

"I think it's the air," Jenny said, "can you feel it?"

Jack shook his head.

"You can't die, that's why," Donna said, almost sleepily.

"Neither will any of you," Jack said, "come on. You need to stand up and move around."

Gently he helped her up and towards the console for support and returned to the Doctor.

"Doctor! Come on, time to rise and shine!"

The Doctor didn't stir.

"I think..." Donna looked all around her, "the air's getting clearer. Are we moving?"

"Come on, Doctor!" Jack took his hands. "We're going to Torchwood. I need my daily lecture on how pointless we are! Even if Ianto _has_ just possibly saved the day!"

The Doctor murmured something and opened his eyes. His gaze was blank.

"We're moving," Jenny said behind him, "we're really moving...I think we're getting away."

She stood in front of the Doctor and planted her hands on his shoulders.

"Father! Wake up! Donna's trying to drive the TARDIS again!"

"Tell her to stop..." His voice was weak and wavering but it was a voice, at least. "Can't get any sleep..."

"Doctor! Snap out of it!" That was Donna.

Slowly, his eyes fixed on each on them in turn.

"What's going on?"

"You're under attack," Jack said, as he hauled him into an upright position.

"Torchwood...someone said something about Torchwood." His eyes, now fully alert, glared at Jack. "What have you done? You did something..."

"Yeah...well...kind of an accident but everything's gone haywire in 2007 and you've seriously pissed off those creatures outside..."

The Doctor was silent for a moment as he looked over the controls.

"Take your time," Donna sounded nervous as she spoke to him, "get your bearings first."

"Never liked seeing you trying to steer the TARDIS," he replied vaguely.

"He's still out of it," Donna whispered.

"Let him talk," Jack whispered back, "he'll get there."

Donna faced the Doctor again, this time with a slightly forced smile on her face.

"Never like seeing me steering the TARDIS? You never bloody let me!"

"That time..." He ran a hand over the controls, "when the Crucible was destroyed and we steered the Earth home, remember?"

"Actually no, I don't. For _some_ reason, my memories of that time are a bit hazy."

The Doctor ignored her tone as he pulled a lever.

"You knew exactly what to do. There I was, showing everyone...Rose, Sarah, Martha...and when I passed you, I knew. You didn't need to be told. There you were, upright and proud and full of joy because you knew it all. You knew everything I did. It was in your voice. It was in your eyes. It broke my hearts because you knew as well as I did what had to come next."

Donna's face softened slightly.

"Best friends and equals," she whispered, "I think I said that once..."

The Doctor returned her smile with a wide, manic one of his own and returned his attentions to the controls.

"Unlike me! First time I ever did _this_," he pulled down hard on the lever again and jumped back as sparks flew out, "I didn't have a clue. I'd never done it, not by myself. Not for something so..._essential_." He pressed three buttons and stared intently into the screen.

"What _are_ you doing?" Jenny asked nervously.

"Timelock," he replied, "it's a bit draining, this process." He fell silent and his face darkened.

"Doctor," Jack said softly, "time and a place for brooding."

The Doctor glanced swiftly at him and looked away again.

"I'm locking everything that's happened since this all started...the first mention in Torchwood, remember Jack? Ianto mentioned strange weather patterns. Right from that moment to the second we get back to Earth. No one can get in and out if they're taking the old time route! That includes me, you and our little friends out there."

"I've still crashed the spaceship," Jenny said.

Jack met Donna's eyes and saw that she'd noticed the same thing he had. The TARDIS was quiet again and her movement was less frenetic...as if she was merely awaiting further instruction.

"Jack, I need your Vortex Manipulator. This process will weaken the TARDIS even more. She may need help with this next bit."

"Is that help as in a little spark to keep the lights on or help as in a jumpstart?" Donna asked.

"Donna, think positive."

"Brace for impact, that's what I'm thinking."

The Doctor pressed the Vortex Manipulator against a large blue button and stared intently downwards, as if burning its image on to his mind.

"Doctor, are we anywhere remotely near Torchwood? Because if we are, I really think..."

"Jack," the Doctor cut in quickly, "I'd like nothing better to enjoy your hospitality in Cardiff for a while but right now, we're circling around in the middle of the universe and in about ten seconds..." He broke off, ran to the door and then turned back to Jenny. He smiled at her, placed his hands on the sides of her face and spoke softly.

"See you later."

"What?"

In a second, her body crumbled. The Doctor caught her and eased her gently to the ground.

"Best she's not around for this bit," he said and catching Donna's eye, "it's ok. She's just asleep." He ran back to the door and Jack followed. The Doctor threw it open and they looked outside.

"Ah," Jack said softly when he realised what the Doctor wanted to do.

"Here," the Doctor handed him back his wrist device, "it's programmed and ready. Just hold on, ok? Keep the line straight and don't move. Donna! Steer the TARDIS down."

"_What?"_

"I told you! Best way to learn! In at the deep end!" He ran back to the controls, and Jack watched as two thin lines spread from his wrist and outside into the fogged, blue air.

"I'm afraid to ask," Donna muttered.

"You don't need to be," Jack told her and he couldn't keep the exhilaration out of his voice, "you know what the Doctor just did when Jenny fell asleep? Put her on the ground? Gently?"

"Yeah..."

"That's what we're doing right now. _This_ time, with her spaceship."

"Great. So not only am I steering. I have to steer _properly_."

Jack stared straight ahead and focused on standing very still. The air around him was quiet and cold, as if the whole world was holding its breath.


	16. Soft Landing

Jenny learned a new word that day.

She opened her eyes and sat up quickly when she realised that she was lying on the ground. Had something else happened? Were they really under attack now? She had reached into her jacket before remembering, yet again, that weapons were no longer much of an option.

"Morning!" Jack said as he caught sight of her. He sounded far more cheerful than she would have expected.

"What happened?"

"You fell asleep on the job. Pity. You missed a fine sight."

"I never just _fall asleep_." She got to her feet and made her way to the TARDIS door where Jack was standing. To her right, Donna was leaning over the controls, looking traumatised.

"Never again," she muttered.

"That a promise?" the Doctor asked. He bounded over to Jenny and put an arm around her shoulders.

"Look out. We're landed. Can you see anything?"

Jenny squinted.

"Darkness?"

"We're in London, 3009."

"What? We're back there? What happened?"

"Some brilliant driving on Donna's part! And if I may say so myself..."

"And yet again, he takes all the glory," Jack said, but he was smiling.

"It's your spaceship, Jenny, look! We intercepted it at the point where you got out of it...that's why I made you sleep. Couldn't have two of you on the loose again! And we gave it a slightly softer landing."

"Didn't feel softer," Donna said, "is no one down there going to wonder where a giant spaceship came to land in the middle of some street?"

"They'd wonder more about floods and devastation, wouldn't they? Besides, for all you know, it's fairly commonplace by then! Point is, we've put things right, well, as right as we can."

Jenny could almost feel the impact of her heart sinking. "If I told you straight away about what happened with the ship, you could have put it right before anything happened?"

"Don't worry about it," the Doctor said, "we'll save the lecture for when we're somewhere safer. Besides, and _don't_ remind me of this when I'm _doing_ the lecturing...some things are meant to be part of a bigger picture." He gave Jack a sideways glance as he said that.

"So it's all back to normal now?" Donna asked tentatively, "Nerys and her baby...and all the others. Can I go and see her?"

"'Fraid not," the Doctor said, "at least not yet. I've offended our friends out there, Donna. I've injured them. And now, I've confined them for quite a while to certain particular times. They won't want to catch sight of me anytime soon. So, in order to let things settle down, we need to keep away for a bit. Even without us around for them to chase, I have a feeling Torchwood will be reporting on strange weather patterns for a while. We need to keep that to a minimum."

"What if they take revenge on us by hurting people out there?"

"It's not how they work. They slip in and out of time...symbiotic relationship, remember? This will pass and they'll move around as they've always done, in search of their ghosts and energy and Chosen Ones. Sometime in the future, we'll encounter them again but something tells me that was always a possibility."

"You keep looking at me when you talk like that," Jack said.

"Keep an open mind, Jack, that's all I'm saying..."

"That's never all you say..."

"You can't declare war on them and you can't reason with them. You'll have to find a way to co-exist and let's face it, you've plenty of time to do that."

"Comforting words!"

Jenny stepped tentatively outside the TARDIS door. The night was dark, darker than it should have been, given that this was a city at night. Lights shimmered in the distance but in front of her, her spaceship was nothing but a large bulk of black. She reached out and put her hand on it, trying to feel the old familiar surge of exhilaration as they connected. Nothing. She looked up at the stars, picturing herself somewhere up there, crouched in an escape pod with no idea where she was going to land.

It should have been terrifying but a part of her had always been so excited at the prospect of landing. Maybe it was the sheer fact of having no expectations. Sure, she'd been lonely. If she could have, safely, met that other self of hers right now, she would tell her that around the next corner was Earth and the Time Agency and Clara and a path back to where she'd begun.

With a sigh, she turned back to the TARDIS and froze...

...Something was making its way quietly to the door.

"Jack! Shut the door! Now!" She sprinted to the TARDIS and before he had a chance to register her words, she grabbed the door, slammed it and kept her hand firmly on the handle, keeping them all inside.

"Jenny!" Jack sounded furious. "Get inside!"

Most likely she had seconds before her father forced her hand with the screwdriver. Jenny turned her head and faced the creature.

"Please let us go," she said and somewhere inside, she marvelled at the fact that her first point of contact was words, not combat. Not that combat would be much use. You only had to look at the fairies to sense their power. It emanated like light from their bodies and as tall and solid as this one looked, there was that sense that it was completely intangible too. It could disappear, change shape, shimmer from one reality to the next without drawing a breath.

The creature didn't reply. Instead, its hands, long fingered and graceful, reached out towards the TARDIS...

...and picked it up as if it weighed nothing.

Jenny's grip was wrenched from the door and she toppled over sideways

"Please! Let them go! We didn't mean you any harm!"

"You caused great harm to our world and to us."

"I know. I'm sorry."

The creature regarded her for a long moment and with its other hand, reached down and touched her hair. Jenny held her breath, forcing herself not to move.

"Your age is indefinable," it said, "a child and not a child."

"I'm not a child."

"You could join us."

"What?"

The creature replaced the TARDIS on the ground and fixed Jenny with its piercing glare.

"You could come and be part of us. You would be nurtured. You could live forever."

"I need to go with _them_," Jenny said, reaching out for the TARDIS door and in the same instant, Jack pulled it open from the inside. At the sight of them, he stopped Jenny could see that he was fighting with himself to stay still.

"She's not a Chosen One," he said to the fairy and it sounded like his teeth were clenched with the effort of talking calmly, "but if she's important to you, protect her. Let her stay with us. Someday you might be glad of it."

Around them, lights were forming, dozens and dozens of them. With a sinking feeling, Jenny realised that it was more fairies.

"If you take me, will you let them go?"

"No!" Jack turned to the fairy and his face was hard and set, "that's non-negotiable."

"Jack, if it's the only way to..."

Jenny stopped as the creature moved again, and bent towards her. Jack shouted something but in the same instant, they were moving, pushed by some immovable force...pushed towards each other...

...and back inside the TARDIS.

Jack slammed the door shut and rounded on her.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?"

"S'ok," the Doctor sounded breathless as he raced back to the controls, "we've really got to get out of here now. You did a good job, both of you. They'd have declared war at the sight of me."

Jenny smiled at Jack, hoping she didn't look too smug.

"So, we travel as far as we can...call it a little holiday," the Doctor said, "and no time-travelling. Not yet. Give the timelocks a chance to take hold. Soon as we land, the TARDIS needs a break. Badly." As he said the words, the TARDIS stirred to life with a violent shudder. The lights flickered ominously.

"How will we know if everything's ok?" Jack asked, "you know...any mistakes that any of us might have made. Unintentionally."

"Oh, I'll know," the Doctor said darkly.

Jenny found herself crying. It happened so quickly that she had no control over it. Turning away from them, she sobbed into her hands as a hurt she'd never known before started somewhere in her abdomen and moved its way upwards. It was like nothing she'd ever felt...and something in her mind urged her to scream or break something or run away from it as fast as she could.

The Doctor put an arm around her and the firmness of his grip was strangely comforting.

"Don't know why I'm crying," she sniffed.

"I do," he said quietly, and he looked around the TARDIS. "You did something amazing on Messaline, Jenny, connecting yourself to that ship. You were part of it and it was part of you. You touched it out there, didn't you?"

She nodded. "I felt nothing. It was like it was...gone."

"It was part of you," he repeated.

"Can you bring it back? Or could we go back sometime and see it?"

Gently, he shook his head.

And that was how Jenny learned another new word..._grief_.

Wiping her eyes furiously on her sleeve, she tried to force her voice into something resembling lightness.

"Have you changed your mind about fairies, Donna? Maybe not quite friendly little spirits after all? Donna!"

The last syllable caught in her throat as she ran forward.

Donna was lying motionless on the floor.

* * *

_Wednesday_

"That was...that was..." Ianto staggered to his feet and looked around him.

"Shaky," he finished quietly.

"Yeah well, it got us here," Jack said, pressing a button on his Vortex Manipulator as he hoped against hope that the Doctor hadn't got some sort of tracker on it.

Beside him, Ianto was staring transfixed at the street in front of them.

"You ok?" Jack asked. Travelling this way, for the first time, could scramble your brains a bit.

"You've teleported, Ianto! What do you think?"

"Torchwood hub to Cardiff Bay. Hope I can stand the excitement."

"Come on!" Jack punched his arm lightly, "this is the first of many! It's just...technically speaking, I'm not supposed to be doing this. And you know me, usually I would say, might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and take you time travelling but...it's kind of complicated and there's all sorts of rules about not interfering and at least here, we're in no way conspicuous."

"We just appeared out of thin air. That could be classed as conspicuous."

"We weren't seen! No one takes any notice of anything when it's cold like this. Come on, let's take a walk."

"We're supposed to be hunting for Weevils in the docks."

"You see any Weevils, I'll hunt for them!"

"Great." Ianto brushed himself down. "So, in the future, maybe, everyone will travel like this. No more cars or buses..."

"Or walks on piers like this...enjoying the fresh air."

"It's pretty strange sometimes, thinking that you might actually know stuff about the future."

"More fun hearing you speculate though. Come on, I know this great Italian place down here. My treat..._you_ can tell me what you think the future will bring and _I'll_ tell you if you're right."

"And I'll tell you when you're lying."

"Hold on." Jack put out his arm to stop Ianto walking. "Did you hear something?"

"What? No...oh...that sounds like..."

"Yeah, doesn't it? Think we found our Weevil."

"And lost our appetites."

"Never mind, you've teleported and _that's_ pretty amazing."

"Feels like a typical day to me," Ianto muttered, as they turned and ran back up the pier.


	17. Epilogue

Epilogue

"You realise what you've done?" the Doctor asked, his voice hard. Through the million things she was trying not blurt out, Jenny had a fleeting realisation that she tended to think of him as _the Doctor_ when things were going wrong between them.

"Told you we were going to get a bollocking," Jack whispered to her, raising an eyebrow. She knew he was trying to make them both feel better but it wasn't working. It wasn't working because his attempt at a smile looked like anything but and because deep down she knew, _they both knew,_ how stupid they'd been.

"Jack?"

The Doctor walked slowly around the console and faced them. Jack looked defiant but Jenny could tell by his sharp intake of breath that he was as uncomfortable as she was.

"Yes?"

"You're not exactly lily-white yourself, are you?"

"Am I ever?"

The Doctor didn't dignify this with an answer.

"Yeah, ok." Jack took a deep breath. "It was a week ago, alright? Ianto and I...there was this restaurant I wanted to take him to and it's kind of complicated but we'd had a bad week and I just thought what harm could it do? Just this once..."

The Doctor gave a short, mirthless laugh.

Before he turned back to Jenny, she stepped forward, anticipating him.

"I know what I've done," she said, "I know what you said and I know I should have listened but when you hear the whole story, you'll know I wasn't just being impulsive. There was a split second and I really had to act or someone would've..."

The Doctor held up a hand.

"Enough...I've heard enough." The anger in his expression was now replaced by a curious mixture of compassion and irritation.

His eyes were so sad when he spoke again.

"Somewhere along the lines, we've all contributed to this."

"_You _haven't," Jenny said, trying hard to keep her voice calm.

"Yes. I have. I've obviously not explained to you _how important_...how..." His voice rose on each syllable and he trailed off as if there were no words to emphasise his point properly.

"Maybe _I've_ even forgotten." He sighed and looked away from them, back to the console and beyond.

"If I hadn't been so blatant about the photograph, we could have handled it more discreetly. But she's Donna's friend and she deserved to be taken seriously. I thought she needed to know that someone believed her."

Jenny couldn't decide if he was talking to them or to himself.

"She did," Jack replied quietly.

"Most of all," he continued talking as if he hadn't heard him, "if I'd been honest with you, if I'd told you from the start what we were up against...when Alice told me. But you take these things seriously and you cause disaster. You run from it and it's the first thing you run into. All of our histories are filled with stories of people who tried so hard to escape from....from dreams, prophecies, whatever you want to call them...I was trying to protect Donna."

"We know," Jack said, "Doctor...none of this is your fault."

"Can't we do anything now?" Jenny asked, "can't we go back...?" She trailed off at the expressions on both faces.

"I don't mean...do anything stupid."

The Doctor stared down at the console but when he swung back to regard them again, his face was clear.

"'Course we can!"

"What?"

"Metaphorically, of course! We sit down and we go through everything that's happened since Donna went for that visit. _Before_ then, in fact..." He gave Jenny a stern look.

"Ok," she said quickly.

"Doctor?" Jack was watching the Doctor and there was something in his face that Jenny had never seen before.

"It's not your fault, any of it," Jack repeated, "Donna would be the first person to say that."

Jenny looked away from them and to the couch in the corner with the purple jacket thrown over it. Later on, she thought, she'd get the jacket dry and clean and hang it up nicely.

It was about the only constructive thing she could think of to do.

As she turned from the couch, there was a rustle as Donna stirred and sat up. Despite being asleep for hours, she still looked exhausted.

"Where are we?" she asked.

The Doctor came over and sat beside her.

"The TARDIS is exhausted, Donna. Almost as much as you are. I'm letting her go at her own pace until we find somewhere to land which I reckon won't be too much further. As the song goes, we're "floating in a most peculiar way."

"And the stars look very different today," Jack murmured.

The Doctor turned to him, his face tired and worn.

"The Earth's in a bit of a mess until things settle down again and I can't be there. But what could we do? There's no other way with these creatures. Fighting with them would be like me declaring war on the TARDIS. You can't fight something that's such an integral part of you and your history. Not without complete and utter disaster. You got hurt, the TARDIS is worn out..."

Donna patted his hand absent-mindedly. "We're ok though, right? Did I miss anything?"

"No," Jenny started to say fervently but when the Doctor turned and glared at her.

"Just my attempts to convince these two that their various convictions that they can waltz in and out of any time they fancy and say nothing about it, is sadly mistaken at best! Did you hear what Jack just told me? He fancied a visit to a restaurant!!"

"To be fair, Doctor," Donna shot Jenny a sympathetic glance. "Jenny was scared. We both were. She thought she'd seen her own death or something. She didn't know what to do. We didn't know what we were dealing with." She looked over at Jack.

"Sorry Jack, I don't think there's any excuse for you!"

Jack grinned at her.

"Heard that one before."

"There's none for me either," the Doctor admitted, taking her wrist and feeling for her pulse, "I completely forgot about what you'd been through. You must have been in agony with that shoulder. You could have had serious head injuries after that fall. No wonder you collapsed."

"Didn't feel anything really. Adrenaline of the moment, I suppose. You weren't in great shape yourself, remember?"

"None of us are," the Doctor said tiredly.

"It'll be ok," Jack said, "you said it yourself, Doctor. Everyone's safe. That's the most important thing." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For a moment, there, until the Doctor shouted for him to help Donna to the couch, he thought that, despite their efforts, they'd still managed to lose her. Her face had looked ashen as if every little spark of energy had been wiped from it. Even her sleep had looked too unnatural, far too quiet. He really couldn't blame the Doctor for having a rant. After all, the lecture was bound to happen sooner or later.

Donna pushed herself to one side and felt for the floor underneath the couch. She pulled out a paper bag and showed them its contents.

"Remember this, Jenny?"

The Doctor took studied it with a wry smile.

"Where do you humans get your notions of what fairies look like? This looks like a little princess who happens to have a pair of wings! Do people really think...?"

"Yes," Jack cut in as he walked over to take a look at the small, glittering doll, "they do, Doctor. I knew someone once...she believed this was exactly what they were. She loved them. To her, they were little beings of light watching over us, watching over all of nature."

"She wasn't far wrong, in one sense."

"They killed her!"

"And how proud might she have been, Jack, to see you calmly ask them for Jenny's protection out there?"

Jack shrugged as if he didn't trust himself to speak just then.

"Are you going to give it to the baby?" Jenny asked, as if sensing that the subject needed changing.

Donna nodded. "God knows what I'll say if she ever asks me to tell her a story about them!"

"Lots of fairytales are really quite horrendous underneath," the Doctor said, "doesn't take away from their charm somehow!"

Jack smirked, despite himself. "I'm really, really glad you didn't look at me when you said that, Doctor!"

* * *

She was dreaming about a tree falling. Running footsteps. Flashes of lightening. A tree falling. Bitter cold. A tree falling over and over again...

"Donna?"

She opened her eyes to see the Doctor sitting beside her again.

"Didn't look like that was a dream you'd want to stay in," he said, "how are you feeling?"

"Yeah, alright." Donna looked around. "It's gone quiet. Have we landed?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Let's hope it's somewhere suitable for our...exile."

At his words, Jenny jumped up and raced to the door.

"Jenny!" Jack and the Doctor shouted at her in unison.

"What did we agree about _not_ stepping outside until we know what we're stepping outside _into_?" the Doctor asked. He sounded like he was repeating a much-used instruction. Donna smiled slightly as she remembered the same words being used to her often enough.

"Just wanted to check that it was safe for you," Jenny said but she came back and waited beside him.

Donna watched as the Doctor stared intently into the screen. It didn't look as if he could see much. The TARDIS was definitely in need of a break, she thought. It was a weird thought. No matter how separated they ever got from the ship, normally she knew that its protection was there when they arrived at a new destination.

As if reading her thoughts, the Doctor turned back to her.

"What do you think, Donna? Shall we explore? Or do you want to rest more? Your call."

Donna stared at the three eager faces in front of her.

"Like I have a choice," she muttered, pushing herself upright.

When all was said and done, a new destination was _always_ pretty exciting.

The End (for now)

_As it's taken me almost a year to complete this story, I'm really grateful to anyone who is still reading and for the lovely, wonderful, supportive reviews. _

_Thank you all VERY much xxxx_


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